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Molisan is a group ofdialects of theNeapolitan language spoken inMolise, a region ofSouthern Italy.
For centuries, the area of Molise was part of theKingdom of Naples, and later part of theKingdom of the Two Sicilies.It is not spoken in a large area (overIsernia,Termoli and Riccia), but within this area there are many linguistic variations due to diverging historical events. Before theItalian unification some eastern parts of Molise were part of theProvince of Foggia (Capitanata), whilst some western areas, in particularVenafro, were part of theTerra di Lavoro (literally "Land of Work"), and Upper Molise was part ofAbruzzo.
For this very reason, the dialect spoken in Venafro may well be likened to the dialects ofCampania andNaples. Some areas have also experienced an upsurge of minority languages such asSerbo-Croatian andAlbanian, whereas other areas of Molise represent isolated communities with little outside contact, who consequently appear to be more conservative. The Frentana area (Termoli,Larino,Trivento) and Upper Molise has dialects that are more closely related to Southern Abruzzese.
Similarly to NaplesNeapolitan, Molisan contains words and sounds that are similar to those inSpanish but are not necessarily of Spanish origin. These includesartania ("frypan", similar to Spanishsartén),sctreppiàte ("broken", similar to Spanishestropeado), andpetacce ("piece", similar to Spanishpedazo). TheRoccamandolfi dialect ofIsernia, a province in Molise, shares many phonetic characteristics with Spanish.
With the exception of loan words fromItalian and Neapolitan, it has no palatalgl sound (/ʎ/, similar to the second syllable ofmillion in theReceived Pronunciation accent of British English) and instead employs the intervocalic/j/. Roccamandolfi also maintains diphthongisation inmetaphony throughue, rather than Standard Italianuo, such as infuéche (Italianfuoco, "fire"),cuéche (Italiancuoco, "cook") anduéve (Italianuovo, "egg"). Molisan also contains lexis derived from a substratum ofOscan, a language spoken by theSamnites. For example,pjéskje ("rocks" or "stones") is related to Oscan*psk.
As typical in theNeapolitan language, the Molisan dialect group employsvowel reduction. In all unstressed positions, vowels (often with the exception ofa) are presented byschwa/ə/, whilst vowels in a stressed position are fully pronounced. This is in line with StandardItalian phonology, in that the schwa never appears in a stressed position. Any vowel following a stressed syllable in a certain word is pronounced as a schwa. A final unstressed vowel, when followed by a pause, may be used for emphasis and is only mandatory when the word is immediately followed by a word with an initial consonant. Note that the schwa is a phoneme in itself, and distinguishes words of different meanings such asI səparə ("I separate myself") andI sparə ("I shoot").The Molisan dialect group also displays the following phonological features:
In the western area of the region (the Province of Isernia) spoken dialects share some common features:
The eastern andAdriatic Sea areas of Molise (theProvince of Campobasso) hosts yet more linguistic variation, with some features nonhomogeneously distributed across the region:
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