Everything about The Salentino totally explained
The
Salentino dialect is the traditional
vernacular of the southern Italian provinces of
Lecce,
Brindisi and part of
Taranto known more commonly as the
Salento; the extreme southern part of the region of
Puglia or the 'heel' of the Italian peninsula.
For socio-political reasons Salentino is usually considered a dialect of
Italian, since speakers don't consider themselves as anything but ethnic Italians, though linguists classify it as a dialect of the separate
Sicilian (or 'Extreme Southern Italian') language, much in the same way as Southern
Calabrian. Salentino thus shows more similarities to the latter dialect and the dialects of Sicily itself than it does to the nearer dialects of central and northern
Puglia and
Basilicata, which are rather varieties of the
Neapolitan or 'Inner Southern Italian' dialect continuum.
The traditional area where Salentino is spoken are the aforementioned province of Lecce, much of the southern part of the province of
Brindisi and the southern part of
Taranto province.
History
The Salentino dialect is a product of the different foreign powers and populations that have washed over the peninsula over the centuries;
Greek,
Byzantine,
Lombard,
French,
Spanish,
Albanian and
Arabic influences are all present in the modern dialect.
During the
Middle Ages, the area was home to both
Romance-based dialects - the precursors to the modern Salentino - and
Greek-based dialects in roughly equal measure. So while much Salentino vocabulary is French or Spanish in origin, it has also taken on much Greek lexis as well due to this bilingual situation that existed for many centuries.
The areas of Greek speech have retreated over time, but the Salento remains one of two areas of southern Italy, the other being southern Calabria, where the
Griko dialect can still be heard in some villages (today known collectively as the
Grecia Salentina).
Characteristics
The term "Salentino" should be considered a general word to describe the various
Romance vernaculars of the Salento peninsula rather than a term to describe a unified standard language spoken throughout the area. Indeed, in common with most other Italian dialects there's no agreed standard on spelling, grammar or pronunciation, with each locality and even generation having its own peculiarities. What unites the various local dialects of the Salento are their shared differences from the dialects further north in
Puglia, such as the
Barese dialect, and their similarities with other Extreme Southern Italian dialects in southern
Calabria and
Sicily.
One of the major phonetic differences between Salentino and various
Pugliese dialects is that the latter tend to
voice consonants that were originally unvoiced in
Latin. In the dialect of Bari, for example, the standard Italian
cantare, 'to sing', becomes something like
candare,
ancora, 'again', becoming
angora. This typically Southern Italian characteristic isn't found in Salentino.
Another typical feature of Salentino is the pronunciation of the Latin (or Italian)
-ll- as the
retroflex consonant
-ddh-, a
d pronounced with the tongue curled backwards on the roof of the mouth and a sound more familiar to English-speakers as a mark of an accent from
India.
Thus the standard Italian
cavallo, 'horse', becomes
cavaddhu in Salentino. The resort town of
Gallipoli is
Gaddhipoli in local speech. This is a feature shared with other varieties of Extreme Southern Italian, such as the
Sicilian language, and isn't found in any other language native to Europe.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Salentino'.
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