Italian Language: Introduction and Features
Italian is without doubts one of the most important language of the Romance family. It has today about 64 million native speakers, and it is considered a language of culture: it has a long history and tradition. For these reasons, Italian is one of the most studied romance languages.
Italian history and language is very ancient, and has its roots in the italic cultures even before Rome. But the Italian standard language we know today is a pretty recent language. It is true that, from the end of 12th century A.D., Italian has a written and literary tradition. But this tradition reflects a prestigious language, spoken by literates and cultured people. The language of the 'Italian people' started to be conceived only after the unification of the regional states of Italian peninsula in a country named 'Regno d'Italia' (Kingdom of Italy, 1861), which turned to a democratic republic after the World War II.
History
Italian is a member of the Romance languages. They include Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian. All these languages are derived from vulgar Latin spoken in the Roman Empire.
Italian is first attested in some documents around the 10th century A.D. In 13th century a literary and cultural tradition started, which brought to the development of the Italian language as we know in modern times. Ancient Italian, though has some differences with modern language, is quite easily comprehensible for Italians and for everyone who knows Italian language enough.
Italian grammar is different from that of Latin. Like some other Romance languages (French, Spanish,...) it has lost the Latin declension system, and uses preposition to the express the functions of word. On the contrary, Italian vocabulary is largely derived from Latin (principally vulgar Latin), but has acquired some words of other languages (French, Spanish, Germanic languages: in recent times, principally English).
Italian and Romance languages
Though Italian could appear very similar to French and even more to Spanish, it is not mutually intelligible with these two languages. In the written form, Italian and French are quite similar to some extent, but phonoloy is totally different. Italian and Spanish, instead, are very similar in the pronunciation and in the vocabulary, and could be very largely mutually intellegible in the written form and when speaked slowly.
Let's have a comparison between Italian and these other Romance languages.
French vs Italian
FRa) Je lis ce livre-ci.b) J'ai faim.
c) J'ai peu d'amis.
ITa) (Io) leggo questo libro. - I read (I am reading) this book.
b) (Io) ho fame. - I am hungry.
c) (Io) ho pochi amici. - I have few friends.
a) In the first sentence, the syntactical structure is identical (SVO) and vocabulary is etymologically related (lis - leggo from Latin LEGERE; livre - libro from Latin LIBRUM). Although, there are some differences. In French, like in English and Germanic languages in general, subject is always expressed. In Italian is not necessary to express it, and generally is not expressed, because the verb morphology express who is the subject. The use of demonstrative pronoun is quite different: in Italian it preceeds the object, while French uses two elements, one before and the other one after the object which is referred to.b) The second sentence is identical in syntactic structure and very similar in the vocabulary (ai - ho from Latin HABERE; faim - fame from Latin FAMES).
c) This third sentence French and Italian are quite different in the morphology. In French there is a particular type of article (article partitif - partitive article) which express a part of something. Although even Italian has this article (articolo partitivo), in this kind of sentence it is not used (you can't say *Ho pochi di amici).
Spanish vs Italian
c) J'ai peu d'amis.
b) (Io) ho fame. - I am hungry.
c) (Io) ho pochi amici. - I have few friends.
a) In the first sentence, the syntactical structure is identical (SVO) and vocabulary is etymologically related (lis - leggo from Latin LEGERE; livre - libro from Latin LIBRUM). Although, there are some differences. In French, like in English and Germanic languages in general, subject is always expressed. In Italian is not necessary to express it, and generally is not expressed, because the verb morphology express who is the subject. The use of demonstrative pronoun is quite different: in Italian it preceeds the object, while French uses two elements, one before and the other one after the object which is referred to.
b) The second sentence is identical in syntactic structure and very similar in the vocabulary (ai - ho from Latin HABERE; faim - fame from Latin FAMES).
c) This third sentence French and Italian are quite different in the morphology. In French there is a particular type of article (article partitif - partitive article) which express a part of something. Although even Italian has this article (articolo partitivo), in this kind of sentence it is not used (you can't say *Ho pochi di amici).
c) This third sentence French and Italian are quite different in the morphology. In French there is a particular type of article (article partitif - partitive article) which express a part of something. Although even Italian has this article (articolo partitivo), in this kind of sentence it is not used (you can't say *Ho pochi di amici).
Spanish vs Italian
SP
a) Tengo una pregunta para ti.
b) Este es mi coche.
c) A mi me gusta hablar las lenguas extranjeras.
IT
a) Ho una domanda per te. - I have a question for you.
b) Questa è la mia auto. - This is my car.
c) Mi piace parlare le lingue straniere. - I like speaking foreign languages.
a) Syntactic structure is identical: SUBJECT (which is implied: 'yo - io') + VERB + ARTICLE + OBJECT + PREPOSITION + PERSONAL PRONOUN. There are differences in the vocabulary. In Spanish the verb tener corresponds to Italian avere. In Italian there is also the verb tenere, but with a different meaning ('to hold, to take'); note, however, that in some dialects of southern Italy (as in Neapolitan) the verb 'to hold' can also mean 'to have, to possess'. 'Pregunta' and 'domanda' have clearly different etymology. Finally, the preposition and the personal pronoun are quite similar.b) Similarities in syntax and in the vocabulary (este - questo 'this').c) In this case, we have a syntactical peculiarity of Spanish and generally considered to be incorrect in Italian (but it is used quiet often in the spoken language and it is present in some literary works). It is the sequence a mi me (Italian: a me mi '*I to me').
Conclusion
Italian language is a language of a rich and ancient culture, and could be a privilged way to learn features of Italy and Italian people. Knowing one or more Romance languages could be useful, but remember that there are several differences between Italian and other Romance languages.
a) Tengo una pregunta para ti.
b) Este es mi coche.
c) A mi me gusta hablar las lenguas extranjeras.
a) Ho una domanda per te. - I have a question for you.
b) Questa è la mia auto. - This is my car.
c) Mi piace parlare le lingue straniere. - I like speaking foreign languages.
a) Syntactic structure is identical: SUBJECT (which is implied: 'yo - io') + VERB + ARTICLE + OBJECT + PREPOSITION + PERSONAL PRONOUN. There are differences in the vocabulary. In Spanish the verb tener corresponds to Italian avere. In Italian there is also the verb tenere, but with a different meaning ('to hold, to take'); note, however, that in some dialects of southern Italy (as in Neapolitan) the verb 'to hold' can also mean 'to have, to possess'. 'Pregunta' and 'domanda' have clearly different etymology. Finally, the preposition and the personal pronoun are quite similar.
b) Similarities in syntax and in the vocabulary (este - questo 'this').
c) In this case, we have a syntactical peculiarity of Spanish and generally considered to be incorrect in Italian (but it is used quiet often in the spoken language and it is present in some literary works). It is the sequence a mi me (Italian: a me mi '*I to me').
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