496 ITALY [LANGUAGE. occurs a Palseo-Italic instance which is worth mention : while Latin was accustomed to drop the u of its nominative only in presence of r (gcncr from *gener-u-s, vir from *vir-u-s ; cf. the Tuscan or Italian apocopated forms t<e ?ier=venere, venner= ennero, &c.), Oscan and Umbrian go much further : Oscan, hurz = *hort-u-s, Lat. hortus ; Umbr. piha-z, piatus; emps, emptus, &c. In Umbrian inscriptions we find u alternating with the a of the nom. sing. fern, and plur. neut. In complete contrast with the Sicilian vocalism is the Neapolitan e for unaccented and particularly final i of the Latin and Neo-Latin or Italian phases (e.g., vicnc, vieni ; cf. infra), to say nothing further of the regular diphthongization, within certain limits, of accented e or o in position (apicrte, aperto, fern, aperta ; muorte,, morto, fern. morta, &c.). Characteristic also of the Neapolitan are certain insertions of vowels to obviate certain collocations : hence 6dejo for odio, or more curiously dvotre, altro. (i.e., aultro, autro, as in Upper Italy, hence dotro, av-f-tro) or cu6i~cte, colto (i.e., cuolto, cu6uto, cu6v-g-to). In the quasi-morphological domain it is to be noted how the Siculo-Calabrian u for the ancient 6 and ft, and the Siculo-Calabrian i for the ancient &, t, are also still found in the Neapolitan, and, in particular, that they alternate with o and e in a manner that is determined by the difference of termination. Thus cosetore, cucitore, pi. coseture (i.e., coseturi, the -i passing into e in keeping with the Neapolitan characteristic already mentioned) ; spose, sposo, pi. spuse ; noce, noce, pi. mice ; crcde, io credo ; cride (*cridi), tu credi ; crede, egli erode ; nigre, but negra. Passing now to a cursory mention of purely morphological pheno mena, we begin with that form which is referred to the Latin pluperfect (see A. 1, B. 2), but which here too performs the func tions of the conditional. Examples from the living dialects of (1) Calabria Citeriore arefaceru, farei (Castrovillari) ; tuta lacollerre, tu te 1 acolleresti (Cosenza) ; Taccettera, 1 accetterebbe (Grimaldi) ; and from those of (2) the Abruzzi, vuler , vorrei (Castelli) ; dere, darei (Atessa) ; candere, canterei. For the dialects of the Abruzzi, we can check our observations by examples from the oldest chronicle of Aquila, as no)i habera lassato, non avrebbe lasciato (str. 180). There are some interesting remains (more or less corrupted both in form and usage) of ancient consonantal terminations which have not yet been sufficiently studied : s incaricaviti, s incaricava, -abat (Basilicata, Senise); ebbiti, ebbe(i&. ); aviadi, aveva (Calabria, Grim aldi) ; arrivaudi, arrivo (ib. ). The last example also gives the -an of the 3dpers. sing. perf. of the first conjugation, which still occurs in Sicily and between the horns of the Neapolitan mainland. In the Abruzzi (and in the Ascolan district) the 3d person of the plural is in process of disappearing (the -no having fallen away and the preceding vowel being obscured), and its function is assumed by the 3d person singular; cf. C. 1.- The explanation of the Neapolitan forms songhs,, io sono, essi sono, donghf, io do, stonghe, io sto, as also of the enclitic of the 2d person plural which exists, e.g., in the Sicil. avissivu, Neap, avlsteve, aveste, has been correctly given more than once. It may be remarked in conclusion that this Neo-Latin region keeps company with the Roumanian in maintaining in large use the -ora derived from the ancient neuter plurals of the type tcmpora: Sicil. j6cura, giuochi; Calabr. nidura, Abruzz. nidfre, nidi. As for literary documents, if mere fragments and dubious instances are left out of account, Sicilian poetry goes back as far as to the first half of the 13th century, to which century also the chronicles written in Sicilian extend ; but either the copies which we possess are not contemporary or the paleographic key of the readings preserved, to us is wanting. In the library of Naples, some MSS. of the 14th century contain poetical translations of which the dialect would seem to belong to the Mediterranean versant of the southern pro vinces. The old rhymed chronicle of Aquila, which has been referred to more than once above, belongs to the 14th century. 4. Dialects of Umbria, the Marches, and the Province of Rome. The Ascolan dialect (basin of the Tronto) still depends on the Abruzzan system ; and, speaking generally, several conspicuous southern phenomena are widely distributed through the region now under review. Thus the 11 = Id extends from the Abruzzi (Norcia : callii, caldo ; Rome : ariscalla, riscalda ; the phenomenon, however, occurs also in Corsica) ; and the assimilation of nd into nn, and of nib into mm stretches through Umbria, the Marches, and Rome, and even crosses from the Roman province into southern Tuscany (Rieti : quanno, quando ; Spoleto : comannava, comamlava ; Assisi : pia- gnenno, piangendo; Sanseverino Marches: pi<igncnnc, mmece, invece (imbece) ; Fabriano : rcnnccassc, vendicarsi ; Osimo : monno, mondo ; Rome : fronna, fronda ; piommo, piombo ; Pitigliano (Tuscany) : quanno, piagncnno). Even the diphthongs of the e and the o in posi- tionare largely represented. Examples are at Norcia: ticmpi, uocchi, stuortu ; Assisi and Fabriano : ticmpo ; Orvieto : tiempo, ticrra, le tuorte, li torti, and even duonna. The change of I into r, so fre quent throughout this region, and particularly characteristic of Rome, is a phenomenon common to the Aquilan dialect. Similar facts might be adduced in abundance. And it is to be noted that the features common to Umbro-Roman and the Neapolitan dialects must have been more numerous in the past, as this was the region where the Tuscan current met the southern, and by reason of its superior culture gradually gained the ascendency. 1 The phonologi cal connexions between the Northern Umbrian, the Aretine, and the Gallo-Italic type have already been indicated (B. 2). In what relates to morphology, the -orno of the 3d pers. plur. of the perfect of the first conjugation has been pointed out as an essential peculiarity of the Umbro-Roman territory ; but even this it shares with the Aquila vernaculars, which, moreover, extend it to the other par adigms : amorno, tim6rono, &c. Further, this termination is found also in the Tuscan dialects. In a large part of Umbria an m or t is prefixed to the sign of the dative: t-a lu, a lui ; m-al re, al re ; 2 which must be the remains of the auxiliary prepositions int(us), a(ni)pud, cf. Prov. amb, am, (cf. Arch., ii. 444-46). By means of the series of Perugine texts this group of dialects may be traced back with confidence to the 13th century ; and to this region should also belong a " Confession," half Latin half vernacular, dating from about the llth century, edited and annotated by Flechia (Arch., vii. 121 sqq.). The "chronicle" of Monaldeschi has been already mentioned. A collection of ancient dialectal texts of Perugia and the neighbouring districts is to be published by Monaci in the Archivio Glottologico. D. Tuscan, and the literary language of the Italians. We have now only to deal with, the Tuscan territory. It is bounded on the W. by the sea. To the north it terminates with the Apennines ; for Romagna Toscana, the strip of country on the Adriatic versant which belongs to it admin istratively, is assigned to Emilia as regards dialect. In the north-west also the Emilian presses on the Tuscan, extending as it does down the Mediterranean slope of the Apennines in Lunigiana and Garfagnana. Intrusions which may be called Emilian have also beeij noted to the west of the Apennines in the district where the Arno and the Tiber take their rise (Aretine dialects) ; and it has been seen how thence to the sea the Umbrian and Roman dialects surround the Tuscan. Such are the narrow limits of the " promised land " of the language which has succeeded and was worthy to succeed Latin in the history of Italian culture and civilization, the land which comprises Florence, Siena, Lucca, and Pisa. The Tus can type may be best described by the negative method. There do not exist in it, on the one hand, any of those phe nomena by which the other dialectal types of Italy mainly differ from the Latin base (such as ii = u ; frequent elision of unaccented vowels; ba = gua; $=fl , nn = nd, &c.); nor, on the other hand, is there any series of alterations of the Latin base peculiar to the Tuscan. This twofold negative description may further serve for the Tuscan or literary Italian as contrasted with all the other Neo-Latin languages; indeed, even where the Tuscan has a tendency to alterations common to other types of the family, it shows itself more sober and self-denying, as may be seen in the reduction of the t between vowels into d or of c (k] between vowels into g, which in Italian affects only a small part of the lexical series, while in Provencal or Spanish it may be said to pervade the whole (e.g., Prov. and Span, mudar, Ital. mutare ; Prov. segur, Span, seguro, Ital. sicuro). It may consequently be affirmed without any partiality that, in respect to historical nobility, the Italian not only holds the first rank among Neo-Latin languages, but almost consti tutes an intermediate grade between the ancient or Latin and the modern or Romance. What has just been said about the Tuscan, as compared with the other dialectal types of Italy, does not, however, preclude the fact that in the various Tuscan veins, and especially in the plebeian forms of speech, there occur particular instances of phonetic decay ; but these must of necessity be ignored in 1 There is therefore nothing surprising in the fact that, for example, the chronicle of Monaldeschi of Orvieto (14th century) should indicate a form of speech of which Muratori remarks: "Romania tune fanii- liaris, nimirum qu?e in nonnullis accedebat ad Neapolitanam seu voci- bus seu pronuntiationc." The alt into ait, &c. (aitro, moito), which occur in the well known Vita di Cola di Rienzo, also shows Abruzzan affinity. 2 This second prefix is common to the opposite valley of the Metauro, and appears farther south in the form of me, Camerino: me lu petlu, nel petto, me lu Seppurgru, al Sepolcro.
Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/518
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