Is this Standard Italian language?

Question

This is just a 10-second voice file but if you can identify it please answer my questions.

1. Is she speaking in Standard Italian or is it some sort of dialect?

http://media.putfile.com/Italian-Greeting

2. Are the Italian dialects mutually intelligible?

3. Do Italian speakers really understand Spanish and Portuguese?

Can you understand what she is saying?

http://media.putfile.com/Espanol-93

Answer 1

1) It's Standard Italian.

She says: "Ciao mamma papà, sono molto contenta in questo periodo perchè tra poco mi sposo, e aspetta il mio matrimonio. Ciao!"

Translated: "Hi Mom Dad, I'm very happy in this period because in a few time I'll be married, and wait for my wedding! Bye!"

The accent seems to be from the south, but definitely there's no dialect in it.

2) No. In southern Italy (Sicily, Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, etc) dialects are a lot difficult to understand for other people, because they speak an almost different language. In Sardinia they speak a completely different language (of course besides Italian). In Rome there's just an accent, and some words are changed, but it's enough intelligible. In Florence it's the same, they've just a different pronunciation. Bologna has a dialect that's not so easy to comprehend. Milan has some local words and another accent. Venice has its own dialect. And so on. If you can watch an Italian dubbed episode from The Simpsons, you will find out that our dubbers used some Italian strong accents for the characters. Wiggham has a Naples accent, Willy the gardener is from Sardinia, Carl (Homer's friend) is from Venice...

3) We may understand a Spanish speaker, but not so easily because there are a lot of false friends in both languages (e.g.:salir in Spanish means go out, salire in Italian means go up). The Portuguese is way too different, but a Spanish speaker may understand it a little bit; let's say that Spanish is kinda conjunction between Italian and Portuguese.

I think I've heard the guy talking about the noise coming out from the Tv, and saying that nothing happened. But I studied Spanish some years ago.

Answer 2

My wife is Italian born, and she can make out Spanish if spoken slowly. If I speak Italian with a French flair, I can be understood by some French.

Answer 3

She is speaking proper Italian; not sure of the accent.

I am an American who lived in Sicily for three years and was married to a Sicilian for five years, and I can understand Sicilian almost perfectly.  When I hear "Napolitano", the dialect of Naples, I understand very little, yet  I understand proper Italian, such as that spoken on their national tv, very well.

Answer 4

Hi!

I'm from Milan, Italy. (Sorry for my English)

As for your first question...The girl speaking in this file, speaks a Standard Italian with a Northern accent. She isn't speaking in dialect.

She says that she is very happy because she is planning to marry.

Her accent is surely from northern regions, maybe near Swiss.

2. I think, Italian dialects are not mutually intelligible...I mean..that for me that I live in Milan is easier to understand an English man...than a man who speaks in for example the dialect of naples or palermo!

Dialects are very difficult to understand. I think a person from Bergamo cannot understand one from Naple.

Italy unified only in 1861 so...there were many different realities, influences, traditions, castles, exc...

today the majority of northern people, speaks a standard italian sometime with a soft accent. The north is very multicultural and international, today.Maybe in the small countries and old people, use dialect to speak. But everywhere you find standard italian.

In the centre and in the south, you will find, much more tradition and people who speak in dialect in its everyday language, but also know the italian because studied it at school. When they speak standard italian, they have an heavy accent and often is not easy to understand them. They have also different terms for things and way of speaking.

What I assure you, is that an italian can't understand another italian who speak in dialect.

There are differences even in cities very near!

In my family only grandma knows dialect. She is from cremona (Milano), every small town has its own dialect.Grandma is 95 years old...and know speaks a perfect standard italian.

I can't understand her if she speaks in cremonese...many words are similar to french or austria...because also for the domination in the past centuries...

televisions programms and papers are in standard italian (except some comic actor)

3. Italian speakers...don't really understand...spanish, portoguese or french...but understand...some words...Our languages are very similar...because come from Latin(romans).

so we have many words in common.

Last december I went to france. I don't speak french...but if they spoke slowly I understood the meaning of the phrase...and they...the same...If I spoke in italian...slowly, they understood!Someone told me to speak in italian, and not english...because they could understand better.

spanish is very very similar.

for example: amore (love) - spanish amour!

pantaloni (trousers, jeans,) - french pantalon !

infante (child) - french enfants

patria (homeland) - french patrie

buongiorno (good morning) french bon jour

food is very similar...cheeses and wines.

Answer 5

1. Italian...but it doesn't sound like Sardinian accent to me..

2.  sorry...my english is not good enough for me to answer this question properly :S

3. Mh..I understand better Portuguese than Romanian.

Actually, I can hardly understand Romanian while I understand Portuguese and Spanish quite well (but ok, I'm studying Spanish as a foreign language)

I could 'easily' understand some Spanish also before I started to study it since my local language(Sardinian) and my local dialect(Sassarese) are quite similar to Spanish.

So I could understand it thanks to my Italian, my Sardinian and my Sassarese, not only my Italian :) I'm influenced by the region I live in, so maybe you need the opinion of an user who lives in another part of Italy (:

(oh what a mess xd hope everything's clear)

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I agree with Sabrina (: My grandmother is from the Campidano region too and this type of Sardinian(Campidanese) really sounds like Portuguese.

Answer 6

1.  She is speaking Italian, not a dialect, but she speaks with an accent.  However, it is NOT, as Flavia suggests, a Sardinian accent.  I speak Sardinian. The first give-away is the speaker's first sentence: "Ciao mamma....papa'".  In Sardinia, like in Tuscany, father is "babbo" (babbu) not papa'.

2.  I am Sardinian (father's side,Logudoro region) and as a child I lived there for months at a time and so I learned to speak "Logudorese".  My husband is from the Campidano region.  Yes, Italian people do really understand a large part of Spanish and Portuguese (both are Latin based languages).  I'm not sure of the amount they understand but I think Cosimo's approximations sound right.

Here is the however:  Due to Sardinia's long-time domination by other nations (including Spanish, Moors, etc), their language has many words derived from Spanish, especially in the Logudoro region.  My father understands 90% of Spanish and he speaks it fluently with ever having taken courses.  I used to understand about 75% Spanish just by listening to my father speak Logudorese, then I decided to take courses in university so now I am fluent.  

The Campidano region has more words which are more similar to Portuguese; in fact, many people mistaken my husband for Portuguese when they hear him speak his language (Campidanese).

Your question is very interesting...I'm wondering why you are asking such a question, and if you are study Latin languages.

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p.s.  My humblest apologies to Miki, I neglected to mention Sassarese, which is again, one other very distinct language of Sardinia.  I also neglected to mention that in one area of Sardinia Catalan Spanish is spoken to this day.  By the way, Miki, your English is very good, you communicated clearly (I'll surely get my knuckles rapped for this "chatting").

Answer 7

You have been given excellent answers already.

For the sake of the "debate" regarding the first audio link, the young woman is speaking standard Italian with a Lombard accent (the Milan region); I would venture to suggest the area of Pavia or Piacenza.

Our inability to give you one unambiguous reply as to the accent we heard, may be viewed as an answer to your second question.

Answer 8

hi!

1.is speaking italian, but has a "sardinia" accent...

2.dialects can be really differents each others.. generally they can have something similar if are from close regions, but generally aren't relly intelligible..

3. more or less... I just understand she switched off TV because there was nothing to see.. (is it right?)

Answer 9

1. Yes, that is Italian (lingua italiana). I would describe it as standard (albeit with an accent). It is certainly not a dialect.

2. Yes and no. It depends what you mean by dialects. Within a single group of "dialetti" or "parlati" as I prefer to call them, there tends to be a high degree of mutual intelligibility.

For example:

Pramsan and Bulgnais (Parmesan and Bolognese) - both dialects of the Emilian *language* - are mutually intelligible;

Palermitano and Catanese - both dialects of the Sicilian *language* - are mutually intelligible (with some difficulty);

Milanese and Cremasco - both dialects of the West Lombard *language* - are mutually intelligible.

This list could go on and on for hours - there are literally dozens of languages autochthonous to the Italian peninsula (most of them Romance languages distantly related to Italian, all independently descended from different dialects of vulgar Latin). Each of those languages has dozens of dialects. So Bolognese, Palermitano and Cremasco are dialects. But Emilian, Sicilian and West Lombard are languages: they are not dialects of Italian (lingua italiana); they are languages of Italy. There is some degree of mutual comprehensibility between Italian and the other Romance languages of Italy, but not very much!

3. Spanish, being a Romance language, is probably about 30% comprehensible to speakers of Italian who have never studied Spanish. And the same can be said for Romanian. Portuguese though, I would say is less comprehensible - maybe about 15-20%. The degree of mutual comprehensibility between Spanish/Portuguese and Italian is comparable to that between Italian and the other Romance languages of Italy.

Italian, however, is also spoken all over Italy (hence you also have regional, accented varieties of Italian, which have been influenced by the other languages spoken alongside Italian).

I understand Spanish, but then I have studied Spanish. Being an Italian speaker, I understand about 30% of what I hear in Romanian, although I have never studied it. I have a really tough time with Portuguese though - even a written text is not fully comprehensible to me.