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The letters J, K, W, X e Y are not part of the Italian alphabet, so why are they in the list?
Because there were taught and used with the other letters; sometimes were used even in italian words (expecially latin and greek derivates, as "fidejussione" (Surety) from the latin "fideiussio" and "xilofono" (Xylophone) from greek ξύλον xylon (wood) + φωνή phone (sound)), Names (Kevin/Jacopo/Walter/Yara common names in Italy, but not italian wich could be Calvino/Iacopo(Giacomo)/Gualtiero/[not traductable]) and for foreing loanwords (as JoYsticK,) . Nickh ²+, -- 151.18.144.36 ( talk) 00:46, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
The letter'x' is found in some placenames such as Arbatax in Sardinia. The letter 'J' is found in some personal names including indegenousIalian surnames. The placename 'Jesolo' is an error for 'Lesolo' and unknwon to Italians. Barney Bruchstein ( talk) 18:05, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
May 5th, 2007
As a native speaker, I'm quite puzzled by the paragraph Substitutes for foreign letters. Said paragraph seems to suggest that foreign words, before being used in Italian texts, undergo a transformation whereby [for example] the spelling of 'whisky' should turn into something like 'uhischi'. I'm not aware of anything like that; I'm indeed quite used to seeing words imported in their original spelling: whisky, jet, ketchup, etc. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the intent behind the paragraph? Rgiuntoli
Someone asked a question in the main article:
<R> may represent one of two rhotics, an alveolar flap / ɾ/ or an alveolar trill /r/ -- is this one or two phonemes?
I believe they are two phonemes. FilipeS 18:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
How do the Italians pronounce the name for the letter C? The article says it's "Ci," but is that by the English or Italian pronunciation? In other words, is it "See" or "Chee"? My books on Italian aren't particularly clear on this either. J.J. Bustamante 16:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the phonemes of c, In Italian:
However, the article does not say that c in Italian can be pronounced as /s/. Maybe this is because those are not "Italian" words? -- Bringback2ndpersonverbs ( talk) 19:30, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
Sorry for reverting again, but the only name for letter J in Italian alphabet is i lunga (at most i lungo, in case you consider these names as masculine), not "jay" or "gei". The English word jay, though popular, is still not accepted by dictionaries as a loan word. Even the most flexible Italian linguist, Tullio De Mauro, makes no mention of it. Compare [3]. Best regards, -- Erinaceus Italicus ( talk) 19:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Hey, remember that "i lungo" DOES NOT EXIST 'cause in all the Neolatin languages, unlike Greek, letters are always feminine. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
82.48.169.70 (
talk)
15:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't seem appropriate to have the picture of Dante in the box on the top right. Does this follow any type of standard? If contributor wants to include Dante, perhaps he can create a section on some of the greatest Italian writers pulled from the Italian writers page. Mjpl ( talk) 19:04, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Some spellings are missing from the list: gn, gli, diphthongs, triphthongs, doubled consonants, pronunciation of the trilled r and of sc as the English sh.
Explanations of the pronuciation of these spellings would help English speakers who are learning Italian.
A more complete list of Italian spellings is available here:
https://www.ipasource.com/diction-help
Cwkmail (
talk)
18:50, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
What sound does "ì" make, as in Resìna? ZFT ( talk) 20:05, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
User:IvanScrooge98 has been adding "*" to some transcriptions, e.g., "scialo /ˈ*ʃaːlo/". I don't believe * is a standard part of IPA, and I don't understand what it means in this context. Can someone explain? -- Macrakis ( talk) 23:55, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
It's simple: it's true, * is not part of the official IPA, but it is useful to understand syntactic gemination: when it is after a vowel and before a consonant, that consonant should be pronounced twice as long (e.g. città by itself is transcribed as [tʃitˈta*]; hence, città di Napoli is [tʃitˈta ddi ˈnaːpoli]). It's used in many Italian dictionaries: take a look here. -- IvanScrooge98 ( talk) 08:37, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
Very interesting. But:
Thanks for your contributions! -- Macrakis ( talk) 05:39, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
OK, I understand that too many asterisks can be troublesome: so I've just removed them from the article (except those linking to the IPA help page). -- IvanScrooge98 ( talk) 13:34, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
Greetings, Wondering what these two WikiProjects have to do with this article? I just don't see the connection. Should these be removed from this talk page? Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 19:19, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
Does anyone know the rules for the pronunciation of ⟨zz⟩ (pazzo, razzo, ragazzo, etc.)? I searched it in Google but I couldn't find anything. Esszet ( talk) 20:58, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
"⟨G⟩ is also used to mark that a following ⟨l⟩ or ⟨n⟩ is palatal, i.e. /ʎ/ (only before ⟨i⟩) or /ɲ/ (everywhere), respectively (this is not true in words derived from Greek, where ⟨gl⟩ is a plain /ɡl/, like in glicine, 'wisteria'). "
Is it only true for words derived from Greek? Negligente is not Greek, but the <g> is pronounced and isn't only a palatal marker. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.146.41.16 ( talk) 15:30, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
"/ˈaʎʎo/ aglio"
What happened to the "i" in aglio?
—DIV (
1.129.106.87 (
talk)
12:36, 24 February 2021 (UTC))
The article on glissando says the pronunciation of "glissando" in Italian is [ɡlisˈsando] but this orthography article suggests it is pronounced as [ʎisˈsando] which is probably not correct. Is this word an exception? Because if not, then the rules need to be modified in this article a bit. The ⟨gl⟩ is followed directly by ⟨i⟩ and also the word is not from Greek origin, so it should be pronounced like [ʎ] right? Nope. I found on an external source (from here) that says that at the start of a word, ⟨gl⟩ is pronounced like [gl]. Can anyone verify this, and if this is true, modify the article too? Thanks.
It seems to me that ⟨gli⟩ is pronounced:
Are there any words in which ⟨gli⟩ is pronounced [ʎi] before a consonant? Burzuchius ( talk) 13:39, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes, there are some words in which ⟨gli⟩ is pronounced [ʎi] before a consonant. I have found in the DOP: coniglicoltore, coniglicoltura, foglifero, maglificio, scioglilingua, pariglina, sbaraglino, incanaglire, inorgoglire, accogliticcio, coglitore, raccoglitticcio, sceglitticcio, as well as some surnames and toponyms: Paglicci, Scoglitti, Foglizzo, Maglizza, Poglizza, and several names with -glin-. Burzuchius ( talk) 10:19, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Why is there no reference to Q as one of the few salient exceptions to the shallow orthography of Italian? There ought to be a short note on Q versus C and when each is used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bearsca ( talk • contribs) 16:56, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
The section on Z needs serious re-working, as it's full of inaccuracies (even ignoring the conflation of phones and phonemes, which I will for the nonce). As a start, I've stuck in citation needed for this: ⟨zz⟩ is generally voiceless /tts/. Barefoot through the chollas ( talk) 15:05, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
Is there any rule for determining whether an E or O is open or closed? When I learned Italian in the early 90s, we were only taught the open versions. Is that common in the US? Since it was obvious to me that there were at least 2 different versions of E and O, I would always ask my teacher about it, and she would just yell at me, insisting that there is only one pronunciation for each letter. Mitsguy2001 ( talk) 17:42, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Briefly (I hope), because we're starting to re-hash the same things, and this isn't really the place for most of these basics.
Definitely not true. See the Wikipedia article Regional Italian -- ['beːne] is so noticeable that it's a shibboleth/caricature of northern Italian speech. Here's one brief, incomplete, but careful characterization of the north:
There's no reason whatsoever to assume stress difference in normal discourse, as in Maria e Beppe vs. Maria è bella. The distinction is [e] vs. [ɛ]. pèsca vs pésca works as an example, but it's a bit less trustworthy than 'is', 'and' because it's not all that difficult to find native speakers who don't really distinguish pèsca/pésca.
That doc is a guide to deciphering handwritten parish and civil records of a century and more ago, not a description of Modern Italian usage. (It also contains a few obvious (minor) errors and authorship is unknown. On the last count alone, it should not be used as a source in Wikipedia.)
If you want to discuss this further, we can do it on my or your talk page. But please first consult the experts. For a basic textbook, Aski and Musumeci's Avanti. As a trustworthy reference grammar, Maiden and Robustelli cited in the article (I don't have my copy with me, but I assume they go on a bit about diacritics). For phonology, the best accessible source for great detail is Bertinetto and Loporcaro "The sound pattern..." cited in the Italian phonology article, especially p. 137:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/3BD6A21BBF1225A1ED46F6E984131AD3/S0025100305002148a.pdf
No easy simplifications in their findings. Again, I don't have my copy with me, but Stephan Schmid's Fonetica e fonologia dell'italiano might offer somewhat more digestible fare by way of a bit less excruciating detail (WorldCat can locate a copy near you). Buon lavoro! Barefoot through the chollas ( talk) 17:46, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
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The letters J, K, W, X e Y are not part of the Italian alphabet, so why are they in the list?
Because there were taught and used with the other letters; sometimes were used even in italian words (expecially latin and greek derivates, as "fidejussione" (Surety) from the latin "fideiussio" and "xilofono" (Xylophone) from greek ξύλον xylon (wood) + φωνή phone (sound)), Names (Kevin/Jacopo/Walter/Yara common names in Italy, but not italian wich could be Calvino/Iacopo(Giacomo)/Gualtiero/[not traductable]) and for foreing loanwords (as JoYsticK,) . Nickh ²+, -- 151.18.144.36 ( talk) 00:46, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
The letter'x' is found in some placenames such as Arbatax in Sardinia. The letter 'J' is found in some personal names including indegenousIalian surnames. The placename 'Jesolo' is an error for 'Lesolo' and unknwon to Italians. Barney Bruchstein ( talk) 18:05, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
May 5th, 2007
As a native speaker, I'm quite puzzled by the paragraph Substitutes for foreign letters. Said paragraph seems to suggest that foreign words, before being used in Italian texts, undergo a transformation whereby [for example] the spelling of 'whisky' should turn into something like 'uhischi'. I'm not aware of anything like that; I'm indeed quite used to seeing words imported in their original spelling: whisky, jet, ketchup, etc. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the intent behind the paragraph? Rgiuntoli
Someone asked a question in the main article:
<R> may represent one of two rhotics, an alveolar flap / ɾ/ or an alveolar trill /r/ -- is this one or two phonemes?
I believe they are two phonemes. FilipeS 18:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
How do the Italians pronounce the name for the letter C? The article says it's "Ci," but is that by the English or Italian pronunciation? In other words, is it "See" or "Chee"? My books on Italian aren't particularly clear on this either. J.J. Bustamante 16:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the phonemes of c, In Italian:
However, the article does not say that c in Italian can be pronounced as /s/. Maybe this is because those are not "Italian" words? -- Bringback2ndpersonverbs ( talk) 19:30, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
Sorry for reverting again, but the only name for letter J in Italian alphabet is i lunga (at most i lungo, in case you consider these names as masculine), not "jay" or "gei". The English word jay, though popular, is still not accepted by dictionaries as a loan word. Even the most flexible Italian linguist, Tullio De Mauro, makes no mention of it. Compare [3]. Best regards, -- Erinaceus Italicus ( talk) 19:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Hey, remember that "i lungo" DOES NOT EXIST 'cause in all the Neolatin languages, unlike Greek, letters are always feminine. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
82.48.169.70 (
talk)
15:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't seem appropriate to have the picture of Dante in the box on the top right. Does this follow any type of standard? If contributor wants to include Dante, perhaps he can create a section on some of the greatest Italian writers pulled from the Italian writers page. Mjpl ( talk) 19:04, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Some spellings are missing from the list: gn, gli, diphthongs, triphthongs, doubled consonants, pronunciation of the trilled r and of sc as the English sh.
Explanations of the pronuciation of these spellings would help English speakers who are learning Italian.
A more complete list of Italian spellings is available here:
https://www.ipasource.com/diction-help
Cwkmail (
talk)
18:50, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
What sound does "ì" make, as in Resìna? ZFT ( talk) 20:05, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
User:IvanScrooge98 has been adding "*" to some transcriptions, e.g., "scialo /ˈ*ʃaːlo/". I don't believe * is a standard part of IPA, and I don't understand what it means in this context. Can someone explain? -- Macrakis ( talk) 23:55, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
It's simple: it's true, * is not part of the official IPA, but it is useful to understand syntactic gemination: when it is after a vowel and before a consonant, that consonant should be pronounced twice as long (e.g. città by itself is transcribed as [tʃitˈta*]; hence, città di Napoli is [tʃitˈta ddi ˈnaːpoli]). It's used in many Italian dictionaries: take a look here. -- IvanScrooge98 ( talk) 08:37, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
Very interesting. But:
Thanks for your contributions! -- Macrakis ( talk) 05:39, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
OK, I understand that too many asterisks can be troublesome: so I've just removed them from the article (except those linking to the IPA help page). -- IvanScrooge98 ( talk) 13:34, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
Greetings, Wondering what these two WikiProjects have to do with this article? I just don't see the connection. Should these be removed from this talk page? Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 19:19, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
Does anyone know the rules for the pronunciation of ⟨zz⟩ (pazzo, razzo, ragazzo, etc.)? I searched it in Google but I couldn't find anything. Esszet ( talk) 20:58, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
"⟨G⟩ is also used to mark that a following ⟨l⟩ or ⟨n⟩ is palatal, i.e. /ʎ/ (only before ⟨i⟩) or /ɲ/ (everywhere), respectively (this is not true in words derived from Greek, where ⟨gl⟩ is a plain /ɡl/, like in glicine, 'wisteria'). "
Is it only true for words derived from Greek? Negligente is not Greek, but the <g> is pronounced and isn't only a palatal marker. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.146.41.16 ( talk) 15:30, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
"/ˈaʎʎo/ aglio"
What happened to the "i" in aglio?
—DIV (
1.129.106.87 (
talk)
12:36, 24 February 2021 (UTC))
The article on glissando says the pronunciation of "glissando" in Italian is [ɡlisˈsando] but this orthography article suggests it is pronounced as [ʎisˈsando] which is probably not correct. Is this word an exception? Because if not, then the rules need to be modified in this article a bit. The ⟨gl⟩ is followed directly by ⟨i⟩ and also the word is not from Greek origin, so it should be pronounced like [ʎ] right? Nope. I found on an external source (from here) that says that at the start of a word, ⟨gl⟩ is pronounced like [gl]. Can anyone verify this, and if this is true, modify the article too? Thanks.
It seems to me that ⟨gli⟩ is pronounced:
Are there any words in which ⟨gli⟩ is pronounced [ʎi] before a consonant? Burzuchius ( talk) 13:39, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes, there are some words in which ⟨gli⟩ is pronounced [ʎi] before a consonant. I have found in the DOP: coniglicoltore, coniglicoltura, foglifero, maglificio, scioglilingua, pariglina, sbaraglino, incanaglire, inorgoglire, accogliticcio, coglitore, raccoglitticcio, sceglitticcio, as well as some surnames and toponyms: Paglicci, Scoglitti, Foglizzo, Maglizza, Poglizza, and several names with -glin-. Burzuchius ( talk) 10:19, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Why is there no reference to Q as one of the few salient exceptions to the shallow orthography of Italian? There ought to be a short note on Q versus C and when each is used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bearsca ( talk • contribs) 16:56, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
The section on Z needs serious re-working, as it's full of inaccuracies (even ignoring the conflation of phones and phonemes, which I will for the nonce). As a start, I've stuck in citation needed for this: ⟨zz⟩ is generally voiceless /tts/. Barefoot through the chollas ( talk) 15:05, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
Is there any rule for determining whether an E or O is open or closed? When I learned Italian in the early 90s, we were only taught the open versions. Is that common in the US? Since it was obvious to me that there were at least 2 different versions of E and O, I would always ask my teacher about it, and she would just yell at me, insisting that there is only one pronunciation for each letter. Mitsguy2001 ( talk) 17:42, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Briefly (I hope), because we're starting to re-hash the same things, and this isn't really the place for most of these basics.
Definitely not true. See the Wikipedia article Regional Italian -- ['beːne] is so noticeable that it's a shibboleth/caricature of northern Italian speech. Here's one brief, incomplete, but careful characterization of the north:
There's no reason whatsoever to assume stress difference in normal discourse, as in Maria e Beppe vs. Maria è bella. The distinction is [e] vs. [ɛ]. pèsca vs pésca works as an example, but it's a bit less trustworthy than 'is', 'and' because it's not all that difficult to find native speakers who don't really distinguish pèsca/pésca.
That doc is a guide to deciphering handwritten parish and civil records of a century and more ago, not a description of Modern Italian usage. (It also contains a few obvious (minor) errors and authorship is unknown. On the last count alone, it should not be used as a source in Wikipedia.)
If you want to discuss this further, we can do it on my or your talk page. But please first consult the experts. For a basic textbook, Aski and Musumeci's Avanti. As a trustworthy reference grammar, Maiden and Robustelli cited in the article (I don't have my copy with me, but I assume they go on a bit about diacritics). For phonology, the best accessible source for great detail is Bertinetto and Loporcaro "The sound pattern..." cited in the Italian phonology article, especially p. 137:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/3BD6A21BBF1225A1ED46F6E984131AD3/S0025100305002148a.pdf
No easy simplifications in their findings. Again, I don't have my copy with me, but Stephan Schmid's Fonetica e fonologia dell'italiano might offer somewhat more digestible fare by way of a bit less excruciating detail (WorldCat can locate a copy near you). Buon lavoro! Barefoot through the chollas ( talk) 17:46, 14 December 2021 (UTC)