Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
9 thoughts on “Language quiz”
Sicilian?
It sounds close to Italian, and it appears to mention Catania.
Pretty sure it is an Italian dialect – Catania is pretty clear and I think I hear Sicilia in the first part:: the more I listen to it, the more intelligible it becomes – phases like ‘che le cose non ti vanno..” etc.
I also agree that it’s related to Italian. The retention of terminal vowels should rule out some regional variations.
I was also thinking Sicilian based off the content, but I am confused by the pronunciation of as [ˈbɛlːo] (basically identical to Standard Italian) when in Sicilian the word is [ˈbɛɖːʊ]. Is the pronunciation of so stigmatized that it is being lost even in Sicilian? Or is the speaker referring to the Standard Italian pronunciation to describe how it differs from Sicilian? Or is this not Sicilian at all?
(Oops, parts of my response got deleted, and also I mistranscribed the word of interest.)
I was also thinking Sicilian based off the content, but I am confused by the pronunciation of as bella [ˈbɛlːa] (basically identical to Standard Italian) when in Sicilian the word is beḍḍa [ˈbɛɖːa]. Is the retroflex pronunciation of ḍḍ so stigmatized that it is being lost even in Sicilian? Or is the speaker referring to the Standard Italian pronunciation to describe how it differs from Sicilian? Or is this not Sicilian at all?
I was thinking maybe he was occasionally switching into Standard – here and there a perfectly intelligible Italian phrase or word crops up while the rest is nearly unintelligible.
I was thinking maybe he was occasionally switching into Standard – here and there a perfectly intelligible Italian phrase or word crops up while the rest is nearly unintelligible. And I keep being told that this message has already been posted, which it hasn’t.
The answer is Sicilian (lu sicilianu), a Romance language spoken mainly in Sicily, and also in Calabria and Puglia in southern Italy.
The recording comes from YouTube:
Ah, sounds like he’s speaking in a combination of Italian and Sicilian, to explain Sicilian phrases to Italian speakers.
Sicilian?
It sounds close to Italian, and it appears to mention Catania.
Pretty sure it is an Italian dialect – Catania is pretty clear and I think I hear Sicilia in the first part:: the more I listen to it, the more intelligible it becomes – phases like ‘che le cose non ti vanno..” etc.
I also agree that it’s related to Italian. The retention of terminal vowels should rule out some regional variations.
I was also thinking Sicilian based off the content, but I am confused by the pronunciation of as [ˈbɛlːo] (basically identical to Standard Italian) when in Sicilian the word is [ˈbɛɖːʊ]. Is the pronunciation of so stigmatized that it is being lost even in Sicilian? Or is the speaker referring to the Standard Italian pronunciation to describe how it differs from Sicilian? Or is this not Sicilian at all?
(Oops, parts of my response got deleted, and also I mistranscribed the word of interest.)
I was also thinking Sicilian based off the content, but I am confused by the pronunciation of as bella [ˈbɛlːa] (basically identical to Standard Italian) when in Sicilian the word is beḍḍa [ˈbɛɖːa]. Is the retroflex pronunciation of ḍḍ so stigmatized that it is being lost even in Sicilian? Or is the speaker referring to the Standard Italian pronunciation to describe how it differs from Sicilian? Or is this not Sicilian at all?
I was thinking maybe he was occasionally switching into Standard – here and there a perfectly intelligible Italian phrase or word crops up while the rest is nearly unintelligible.
I was thinking maybe he was occasionally switching into Standard – here and there a perfectly intelligible Italian phrase or word crops up while the rest is nearly unintelligible. And I keep being told that this message has already been posted, which it hasn’t.
The answer is Sicilian (lu sicilianu), a Romance language spoken mainly in Sicily, and also in Calabria and Puglia in southern Italy.
The recording comes from YouTube:
Ah, sounds like he’s speaking in a combination of Italian and Sicilian, to explain Sicilian phrases to Italian speakers.