🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mon, 03 Feb 1997 21:11:24 +0200, Avi Jacobson
<avi_jaco@netvision.net.il> wrote:

>Gian Carlo Macchi wrote:
>
>> Avi, I'm Italian. However I don't see any difference between the
>> pronunciation of the word credo in Latin and Italian, here in Italy.
>
>I could be wrong, though I distinctly remember being told this by an
>Italian diction teacher.  (Hmmm, bad nominal compound embedding: I mean
>an Italian teacher of diction.)  Anyone else care to comment on this? 
>Paging Mr. Carrasquer-Vidal!  Pagin Mr. Carrasquer-Vidal!  (Pushkin, go
>tell Daddy someone's look for him!)

Pushkin can't be bothered right now, as she's (!) too busy testing the
central heating system, but I got the message anyway...

CREDO, Latin /kre:do:/ with long /e:/.  Should be /kredo/ in Tuscan
Italian, with both vowels of the close variety, and I believe (io
credo) that is indeed the Tuscan pronunciation.

Quoting Rohlf's "Grammatica storica della lingua Italiana e dei suoi
dialetti":

[Latin /e:/, /i/ > closed /e/ in Tuscany, N. Lazio, adjacent parts of
Umbria]  "Invece della /e/, le parole che sono penetrate nella lingua
popolare toscana dal ceto colto oppure dalla "lingua aulica"
presentano di regola /E/; questo fatto avviene perche` la pronuncia
italiana della lingua latina legge tutte le <e> come /E/, anche quando
vi sia alla base una /e:/ ..."  (O sia: "Instead of /e/, words which
have penetrated into the popular language of Tuscany from the cultured
ranks, or the "aulic language", commonly have /E/; this fact comes
about because in the Italian pronunciation of the Latin language all
<e>'s are read as /E/, even when there is an original /e:/").

Examples of such "voci dotte" (cultured words) are: estremo, completo,
crudele, mistero, primavera, etc. all with /E/ in lingua toscana
["lingua", by the way, is an example of /e/ > /i/ before nasal in a
closed syllable].  We have It. <arena> /arEna/ "arena", via Latin, vs.
<rena> /rena/ "sand", via Vulgar Latin.  "Il fr/E/no della passione"
vs. "Il fr/e/no del cavallo".

Of course, local dialects vary, even within Tuscany, but the tendency
(I won't reproduce the 18 pages of small print Rohlfs dedicates to the
subject) seems to be /e/ > /i/ in the South, /e/ > /ei/ ( > /i/, /E/)
in the North, so we can hear /kridu/, /kreid/, /krEido/, /krEte/ etc.
in different parts of the country.


==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal                     ~ ~
Amsterdam                   _____________  ~ ~
mcv@pi.net                 |_____________|||

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