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To: SunkenCiv
Somebody, even in their 70s or 80s, who was born in Italy and lived in the US can still be understood in Italy. But Italian has undergone huge standardization changes in the past few decades, and it’ll be hard for modern Italian speakers to understand them ...

This may be true in the larger cities but in the remote villages, the old dialect continues to hold sway. Sourcing the dialect can be quite fascinating. For example, I annually visited a small town in the Molise province, over the span of several decades. They trace certain elements of their dialect to the Etruscans. Here is an example of the distinct differences in language vs dialect for that village, written phoenetically.

Upstairs: Italian: sopra - Dialect: in gup
Downstairs: Italian: sotto - Dialect: bal
Let's go: Italian: andiamo - Dialect: amachee
Boy: Italian: ragazzo - Dialect: oocheetala
Girl: Italian: ragazza - Dialect: aahcheetala

Language can be quite fascinating. I studied French and worked for Air France. One of my coworkers often visited Quebec, to study their French. He said that while French is taught in school, the locals continue to speak the French of the 18th century, brought to Canada by French explorers.

2 posted on 11/06/2015 2:43:25 PM PST by NYer (Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy them. Mt 6:19)
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To: NYer

Very interesting. I went to French Canadian parochial elementary school in Massachusetts and had French half the day from 3rd to 7th grade. I later placed into 4th year college French and had no trouble with it, but noticed some of my vocabulary was antiquated and some words I had to relearn to pronounce in Standard French.

I have always loved languages and recently discovered that Old Norse has a heck of a lot more to do with English than I ever realized. Neat language to study.


70 posted on 11/07/2015 7:23:40 AM PST by finnsheep
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