Posts in December 2008

Italiano o Toscano?

Posted by Serena
Dec
17
2008

In the last few blogs about Italian pronunciation I mentioned in reply to some comments that the Italian language has its origins in Toscana (Tuscany) and that Toscano is considered the most correct Italian. But are Italiano and Toscano the same thing? Lets see.

When Italy was being unified in the 19th century there wasn’t a common Italian language just a collection of regional languages such as Piemontese, Lombardo, Siciliano, Toscano, Napoletano, Romanesco, etc. all derived from Latin, and all to various degrees influenced by other languages such as the Arabic, Spanish, French, Longobard, etc. So with the unification of the country there was a need for a common language, but which one, something completely new, or one of the languages that already existed? The second choice prevailed and soon Toscano, and in particular the language spoken in Firenze (Florence), was identified as the most probable candidate. There were three main reasons behind this choice: 1. Out of all the neo-Latin languages, including those from other countries, Toscano is the closest to Latin. 2. Geographically Toscana is at the center of the Italian peninsula. 3. The first great Italian writers of the 13th and 14th centuries, Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarca, were all from Tuscany. The final stroke came from Alessandro Manzoni, writer of the first Italian novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), who in 1827 went to Firenze “a lavare i panni in Arno” (to wash the clothes in the river Arno), meaning that he was going to check the language of his novel against Toscano and remove all the Lombard influences.

So it was that in 1861 Italy, finally unified, had an official common language, together with a King and a Prime Minister who couldn’t speak it, as they only spoke Piemontese and French! For a long time Italian was mainly a written language used only in documents, school and by writers, with the majority of the population continuing to speak their original dialect. In the Army, corporals and sergeants had to translate the officers ‘Italian’ commands into the different dialects spoken by the troops. It wasn’t until the advent of television in the Fifties, together with the spread of formal school education, that Italian finally became the commonly spoken language of the country.

These days it’s rare to find dialects spoken as a first language by the younger generations. Dialect words survive however in two main forms: words related to food, which in Italy is still very regional, and words used for everyday objects. Regional accents and pronunciations on the other hand are, of course, still very common.

So to return to the question are Italiano and Toscano the same thing? When linguists began to codify the rules and grammar of the Italian language, they based their work not on the language spoken by the people, but on the written work of Tuscan authors. An attempt was made to standardize pronunciation, although in reality of course it changes not only from region to region, but also from town to town. The Tuscans (together with the Romans) are said to be the only ones who can distinguish the open or closed e and the open or closed o. In Lucca and Viareggio the hard letter c as in casa is pronounced khasa with a gentle out breath. This pronunciation however becomes stronger and stronger as you get near to Firenze, until the c finally disappears and is instead pronounced like the h in ‘hotel’, so casa becomes hasa. Another characteristic of Toscano is the tendency to shorten words e.g. mia mamma and mio papà become mi’ ma’ and mi’ pa’, and bambino becomes bimbo. We Tuscans also change the spelling of some words: spegnere (to turn off) is spengere, palude (marsh) is padule and schiacciata (flattened or squashed) is stiacciata. These particular spellings are virtually unknown outside the more ‘classic’ Tuscany, not even here in Lunigiana, which although situated in the northern extremity of Toscana is more influenced by the neighboring region of Emilia Romagna. A few days ago, for example, I asked one of my friends here in Lunigiana to switch off the light and without thinking I said: “Puoi spengere la luce?”. She looked at me in surprise and said: “Hai sbagliato. Si dice spegnere” (You made a mistake. It’s spegnere). Tuscany has many words and idiomatic expressions that are not really known outside the region with the notable exception of the famous insult bischero, which denotes a not-very-intelligent person.

It’s beyond the scope of this blog to give a comprehensive list of Toscanismi (Tuscanisms), but if you would like to know more have a look at the following websites: http://www.massamarittima.info/vernacolo/index.htm

http://www.dialettando.com/regioni/Toscana.lasso

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuscan_dialect

Ciao!

 
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Buon Compleanno Maestro!

Posted by Serena
Dec
11
2008

Il Mondo della Lirica (the Opera world) is getting ready to celebrate the 150th birthday of Giacomo Puccini author of many famous Italian operas such as La Bohème, Madame Butterfly, Tosca and Turandot. Reading his biography I discovered an interesting, lively character, and decided to write a little blog to add my small contribution to the celebrations. This is not by any means an exhaustive biography, simply a sketch of the great composer.

Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca (Tuscany) on 22nd December 1858, into a family with a history of five generations of musicians. His father died when Giacomo was five year old leaving his uncle Fortunato Magi to educate him musically without success, describing the young Giacomo as lazy and untalented. Things improved when Puccini went to study with Carlo Angeloni, who had been a pupil of Michele Puccini, Giacomo’s father, and at the age of fourteen Giacomo became the organist of the Duomo di Lucca (Lucca’s Cathedral). He had a reputation as a scavezzacollo (daredevil), and legend has it that he stole and sold pipes from the organ to make some money. In 1876 Puccini walked the 20 km that separate Lucca from Pisa to see a performance of Verdi’s Aida and he was so enthusiastic about was he saw and heard that he decided to become an opera composer.

From 1880 to 1883 he studied composition in the Conservatorio di Milano (Milan Music Academy) with Amilcare Ponchielli and Antonio Bazzini, and he shared a room with Mascagni (future composer of the opera Cavalleria Rusticana). In 1883 Puccini entered his composition Le Villi into a competition for a one-act opera, and although he did not win, the opera was performed in 1884 at the Teatro dal Verme, where it caught the attention of the music publisher Giulio Ricordi. Ricordi commissioned a new opera, Edgar, which took Puccini four years to complete. It was performed in 1889 at the Teatro alla Scala to no great acclaim. Success finally arrived in 1893 with the opera Manon Lescaut, which also marked the beginning of his co-operation with the librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, who worked with Puccini on his next three operas: La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), and Madama Butterfly (1904). Illica would create the outline of the story and discuss it with Puccini until reaching the final format. Giacosa would then write the verses to fit with the music. Giulio Ricordi, who had become a paternal figure for Puccini, would often sort out the controversies between the librettists and the composer brought about by Puccini’s habit of changing the plot.

Meanwhile Giacomo Puccini had fallen in love with Elvira Bonturi, wife of the Lucchese merchant Narciso Gemignani and from 1886 to 1887 they lived in Monza near Milano, where their only son Antonio was born. In 1891 the family moved to Torre del Lago, a small village on the coast near Lucca, where in 1900 the composer bought some land and built a villa. The area around Torre del Lago is covered in scrubby marshland, and rich in wildlife and was therefore a perfect environment for Puccini who was a very keen hunter. He was also a great lover of cars, and is said to have been the brain behind the construction of the first Italian off-road vehicle. In fact he asked Vincenzo Lancia (of the Lancia cars) to build a vehicle that would travel over rough terrain, and a few month later he was presented with a reinforced car with ruote artigliate (literally clawed wheels). Puccini was so pleased with the car that, despite the great expense, he later ordered two more vehicles.

Puccini was an enthusiastic cigar smoker and in 1924, whilst working on the opera Turandot, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. His doctors recommended the new ‘radiation therapy’, which was offered in Brussels (Belgium). Puccini went to Brussels with his wife and son where, sadly, he died on 24th November 1924 due to post-surgery complications. News of his death reached Rome during a performance of La Bohème. On hearing of the great composer’s death the orchestra immediately stopped the opera and began playing Mozart’s Funeral March to a shocked audience.

His last opera Turandot was left unfinished, and was completed by Franco Alfano under Arturo Toscanini’s supervision, based on sketches left behind by the composer and copied by Guido Zuccoli, who used to transcribe Puccini’s almost illegible work. But on the night of the premiere in April 1926 Arturo Toscanini, who was conducting the opera, stopped the orchestra at the point where Puccini had completed the score (that is, after the funeral march following Liù’s death). Turning to the audience he announced: “Here the opera finishes because the Maestro died”.

The Maestro is buried in a private chapel in the Villa Puccini at Torre del Lago, which is now owned by his granddaughter Simonetta Puccini and it is open to the public. The house in Lucca where he was born is also a museum.

Every summer, between July and August, there is an open-air Puccini Festival on the shores of the Lago di Massaciuccoli in Torre del Lago.

If you would like to know more about Puccini or the places and events mentioned in this blog visit the following links: http://www.puccinifestival.it/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Puccini http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Puccini

Buon Compleanno Maestro!

 
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La Pronuncia, part three!

Posted by Serena
Dec
10
2008

I had not originally planned a part three, but as I received an interesting question by e-mail from Andrew I thought other people might find my reply helpful, so I’m publishing it here as a mini-blog.

 

Andrew asked: “How do you pronounce sch as in bruschetta, please?”

 

During the time I lived in the U.K. a lot of everyday Italian snacks and drinks such as cappuccino, panini and bruschetta became increasingly popular and yes it did offend my Italian ears to hear and read the strange variety of spellings and pronunciations used! Of course us Italians do the same thing to English words and it has become very ‘trendy’ in Italy lately to use terms like fitness, wellness, weekend, shopping and so on, usually with an invisibly vowel (fitnessa, weekenda etc.) attached to the end because Italians find it difficult to pronounce words ending in a consonant!

In England my (English) husband once insisted that I pointed out to the proprietor of a little café that the menu included paninis. Panini is the plural of panino (literally little bread, or sandwich) which meant that the cafe was offering what would be the equivalent in English of sandwicheses! The proprietor took it very well and the next time we visited the cafe we noticed that the menu had been corrected to panini. The funniest example that we saw was chalked up on a pub menu board proudly offering Tiramuso, which in Italian means pull a face! I think what they meant to write was Tiramisù, which means literally tira mi sù, or ‘pull me up’ because it is a sweet indulgent dessert that is meant to be what you would call a ‘pick-me-up’. 

Regarding the question: “How do you pronounce sch as in bruschetta, please?” well bruschetta is probably one of the most mispronounced Italian word that I heard used in the U.K.. English people tend to pronounce it like brooshetta and that is where you might get a bit confused. However if you carefully follow the pronunciation rule from my blog, “sc before an i or an e sounds like sh in sheep: e.g. sci, uscita, scelta, in front of a, o, u, or h however sc sounds like sk in skin: e.g. scarpa, scuola, scopa, scherzo“  and of course bruschetta, you will now understand exactly how it should be pronounced. The correct pronunciation is broosketta. And of course don’t forget to roll your r’s!

 
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La Pronuncia, part two.

Posted by Serena
Dec
8
2008

In part one of this blog we looked at the vowels, a e i o u and the consonants c, g and h. Now I want to continue with some combined letter sounds, and double consonants but firstly I’d just like to clarify that all examples of English words given as a guide to correct Italian pronunciation are to be read with a standard English pronunciation as it is not possible to take into account regional variations in accent. Furthermore, as I wrote in reply to a comment on ‘La Pronuncia, part one’, there is no real substitute for listening to Italian being spoken by a native speaker, so please take every opportunity to do so. Learning to listen is a very important language acquisition skill.

 

So lets have a look at the combined letter sounds:

gn the letters gn are pronounced rather like ni in the English word Onion: e.g. giugno, bagno, bisogna

gli sounds similar to lli in the English word million: e.g. moglie, figlio, bottiglia

ci and gi have already been covered in part one of this blog

sc before an i or an e sounds like sh in sheep: e.g. sci, uscita, scelta

in front of a, o, u, or h however they sound like sk in skin: e.g. scarpa, scuola, scopa, scherzo

 

Now the double consonants:

Double consonants in Italian are more deliberately pronounced than single consonants. The vowel that comes before the double consonant is usually shortened. birra, bello, mamma, anno, faccia and occhi are just a few examples. As a simple rule of thumb you can say that the double consonant takes twice as long to pronounce, although this is not always easy as in the following examples: mappa, cappello, sabbia and gatto. In these cases it is necessary to insert a slight hesitation or pause between the vowel and the double consonant.

 

There are two more letters, which I’d like to explain.

The first is z which in Italian has two variations both different from the English z.

The z as in the Italian words zebra, zio and zappa sounds like a combination of the English letters d and z = dz.

The z  in words containing –zione, such as stazione and colazione, and most words with double z e.g. pazzo or tazza have a softer sound, rather like a combination of the English letters t and z =tz.

 

Last but by no means least is that tricky little r.

r in Italian is quite difficult for English speakers although the Scots find it easier. The Italian r is rolled or ‘trilled’ by letting your tongue flutter at the front of your mouth.

 

So I’ll end by rolling my Italian r’s with the words grazie e arrivederci.

 
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Torta di Mele

Posted by Serena
Dec
6
2008

The other morning one of my neighbors turned up at my doorstep with a wooden box full of mele (apples) or rather meline (small apples). They were small, but full of flavor, so I decided to bake a torta di mele (apple cake). I learned this recipe many years ago from a book that my brother gave to me as a Christmas present (it was to his benefit of course because he would eat the cakes I made without having to do the work!), and since then this has been my favorite recipe.

 

Ingredienti (ingredients)

1 chilo di mele (2 lb of apples)

150 grammi di zucchero fino (5 oz of caster sugar)

150 grammi di farina (5 oz of plain flour)

2 uova (2 eggs)

2 cucchiaini colmi di lievito in polvere (2 heaped teaspoonful of baking powder)

1 bicchierino di grappa (1 small glass, 50ml of grappa)

2 bicchierini di latte (2 small glasses, 100ml of milk)

Scorza grattugiata di un limone (grated rind of a lemon)

1 pizzico di sale (a pinch of salt)

1 noce di burro (a walnut size of butter)

 

Preparazione (preparation)

Use the butter to grease a 9” (23 cm) baking tin, and dust it with flour. Peel, core and slice the apples. Sift the flour with the baking powder. Separate the eggs and beat the egg yokes with the caster sugar until creamy and fluffy. Add the lemon rind and flour a spoonful at a time alternating with some milk and grappa. Whisk the egg whites with the salt until firm, and gently incorporate them into the cake mixture. Add the apples keeping aside a handful of slices. Mix well. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin. Decorate the surface with the apple slices kept aside and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Bake in a moderately hot oven, 180°C (350°F), Gas Mark 4 for 45-60 minutes until golden and just firm. To check that the cake is properly cooked I insert a toothpick or a match in the center of the cake and if this comes out dry the cake is ready. Turn the oven off but leave the cake in for another 5 minutes before taking it out. Serve the cake warm or cold. I love it with some plain natural yogurt, but traditionally in Italy we don’t serve torte (cakes) with cream or custard. My recipe book suggests serving the torta di mele with a sweet wine such as Moscato d’Asti Spumante, or Vin Santo del Trentino or Malvasia di Lipari. If you can’t get hold of them choose your favorite sweet wine or liqueur.

N.B. you can substitute the grappa with rum or brandy.

Buon appetito!

 
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