Answers
Oct 03, 2011 - 03:36 PM
I'll have to get back to you on the first question. But as for #2, I think the containment of Italian to a single, not enormous country has definitely been a major reason for why there aren't as many variances as there are in a language like Spanish. Also, taking a page from Jared Diamond, I'd also wager that the relatively mild climate and friendly topography of Italy have proven conducive to reducing the development of as many different accents & words.
Oct 03, 2011 - 09:14 PM
I have a comment about "homogenous" Italian. The vernacular language of Dante, now referred to as (Tuscan) Italian, was chosen as the standard language for Italy after the several regions that today are Italy were united into one country after Garibaldi's campaign of 1860. It took over 100 years for people throughout the country to integrate this language, and it is still not in exclusive use in many areas of the country. For example, two generations ago when my Sicilian born grandfather came to America, he and his sisters spoke Sicilian (still widely used in Sicily today) and knew nothing of Tuscan Italian. Likewise, I had uncles who emigrated to America from Naples and Calabria and many of their words - and their accents- were quite different from SIcilian and very different from Tuscan Italian. My cousin's husband, age 62, who left Italy at age 6, speaks Calabrese dialect fluently but does not know standard Italian. And my northern Italian-American friends today tell me that they can"t always understand the southerners strong accent or slang words, and my Sicilian cousins say the same thing about the northerners. The Tuscan dialect is widely understood, much as American English from the midwest is understood by more Americans than, say, the accents of south Alabama.
Oct 04, 2011 - 09:18 AM
Interesting!
Oct 05, 2011 - 11:34 AM
Commenting on tebell's comment - Italy is a fairly young country - 1860. During the 20th century the government made a big push to unit the different areas by developing "standard" Italian, which is based on the Tuscan dialect. Especially after WWII. As a result we see many of the early 20th century immigrants spoke only their dialect, while more recent immigrants speak standard Italian. However, there still are regional differences in pronounciation, tense use, and vocabulary. What Fluenz is teaching though should be understood in every region of Italy.
Nov 27, 2011 - 03:08 PM
In the United States, we have many accents with the midwestern being more neutral than most. I think that the Tuscan or Florentine accent is similar in that it is more pure and void of regional characteristics (I love Vanessa's voice and pronunciation). In the US, the word "time" is pronounced by many New Yorkers as "toym" and "idea" is pronounced by Bostonians as "idear". I noticed in the Level 1 CD track on numbers that Guillermo pronounces "ci" (as in dieci) as "she" instead of "chee'. He is from Rome. Is this a regional accent? I also heard another Italian tutor (not in Fluenz) pronounce "il" as "eela" and, even more confusing, pronouncing "un" as "oona" - adding a subtle "ah" sound at the end of both of these male articles.