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While the language group is native to much of continental Southern Italy or the former Kingdom of Naples, the termsNeapolitan,napulitano ornapoletano may also instead refer more narrowly to the specificvariety spoken natively in the city of Naples and the immediately surroundingNaples metropolitan area and Campania region. The present article mostly deals with this variety, which enjoys a certain degree ofprestige and has historically wide written attestations.[3][4]
A Neapolitan speaker, recorded inItaly1895 song in Neapolitan.
Largely due to massive Southern Italian migration in the late 19th century and 20th century, there are also a number of Neapolitan speakers inItalian diaspora communities in theUnited States,Canada,Australia,Brazil,Argentina,Uruguay,Mexico, andVenezuela[citation needed]. However, in the United States, traditional Neapolitan has had considerable contact withEnglish and theSicilian languages spoken by Sicilian and Calabrian immigrants living alongside Neapolitan-speaking immigrants and so the Neapolitan in the US is now significantly different from the contemporary Neapolitan spoken inNaples[citation needed]. English words are often used in place of Neapolitan words, especially among second-generation speakers[citation needed]. On the other hand, the effect ofStandard Italian on Neapolitan in Italy has been similar because of the increasing displacement of Neapolitan by Standard Italian in daily speech[citation needed].
Neapolitan is aRomance language and is considered as part of Southern Italo-Romance. There are notable differences among the various dialects, but they are all generally mutually intelligible.
Italian and Neapolitan are of variable mutual comprehensibility, depending on affective and linguistic factors. There are notable grammatical differences, such as Neapolitan having nouns in the neuter form and a unique plural formation, as well as historical phonological developments, which often obscure the cognacy of lexical items.
Its evolution has been similar to that of Italian and other Romance languages from their roots inVulgar Latin. It may reflect a pre-LatinOscansubstratum, as in the pronunciation of thed sound as anr sound (rhotacism) at the beginning of a word or between two vowels: e.g.doje (feminine) orduje (masculine), meaning "two", is pronounced, and often spelled, asroje/ruje;vedé ("to see") asveré, and often spelled so; alsocadé/caré ("to fall") andMadonna/Maronna.[5] Another purported Oscan influence is the historical assimilation of the consonant cluster/nd/ as/nn/, pronounced[nː] (this is generally reflected in spelling more consistently:munno vs Italianmondo "world";quanno vs Italianquando "when"), along with the development of/mb/ as/mm/~[mː] (tammuro vs Italiantamburo "drum"), also consistently reflected in spelling. Other effects of the Oscansubstratum are postulated, but substratum claims are highly controversial. As in many other languages in theItalian Peninsula, Neapolitan has anadstratum greatly influenced by otherRomance languages (Catalan,Spanish andFranco-Provençal above all),Germanic languages andGreek (both ancient and modern). The language had never been standardised, and the word fortree has three different spellings:arbero,arvero andàvaro.
The language has no official status within Italy and is not taught in schools. TheUniversity of Naples Federico II offers (from 2003) courses in Campanian Dialectology at the faculty of Sociology, whose actual aim is not to teach students to speak the language but to study its history, usage, literature and social role. There are also ongoing legislative attempts at the national level to have it recognized as an officialminority language of Italy. It is a recognizedISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee language with theISO 639-3 language code ofnap.
Here is theIPA pronunciation of the Neapolitan spoken in the city of Naples:
Neapolitan orthography consists of 22Latin letters. Much likeItalian orthography, it does not containk,w,x, ory even though these letters might be found in some foreign words; unlike Italian, it does contain the letterj. The following English pronunciation guidelines are based onGeneral American pronunciation, and the values used may not apply to other dialects. (See also:International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects.)
All Romance languages are closely related. Although Neapolitan shares a high degree of its vocabulary with Italian, the official language of Italy, differences in pronunciation can make the connection unrecognizable to those without knowledge of Neapolitan. The most striking[citation needed] phonological difference is the Neapolitan weakening of unstressed vowels intoschwa (schwa is pronounced like thea inabout or theu inupon).[a] However, it is also possible (and quite common for some Neapolitans) to speak standard Italian with a "Neapolitan accent"; that is, by pronouncing un-stressed vowels as schwa or by pronouncing the letter s as[ʃ] (like thesh inship) instead of[s] (like thes insea or thess inpass) when the letter representing/s/ is in initial position followed by a consonant, but not when it is followed by a dental occlusive/t/ or/d/ (at least in the purest form of the language) but by otherwise using the vocabulary and grammatical forms of Italian.
Therefore, while pronunciation presents the strongest barrier to comprehension[citation needed], the grammar of Neapolitan is what sets it apart from Italian. In Neapolitan, for example, the gender and number of a word is expressed by a change in the accented vowel because it no longer distinguishes final unstressed/a/,/e/ and/o/ (e.g.luongo[ˈlwoŋɡə],longa[ˈloŋɡə]; Italianlungo,lunga; masc. "long", fem. "long"), whereas in Italian it is expressed by a change in the final vowel. These and other morpho-syntactic differences distinguish the Neapolitan language from the Italian language and the Neapolitan accent.
While there are only five graphic vowels in Neapolitan, phonemically, there are eight. Stressed vowelse ando can be either "closed" or "open" and the pronunciation is different for the two. The grave accent (à,è,ò) is used to denote open vowels, and the acute accent (é,í,ó,ú) is used to denote closed vowels, with alternativeì andù. However, accent marks are not commonly used in the actual spelling of words except when they occur on the final syllable of a word, such asTotò,arrivà, orpecché, and when they appear here in other positions, it is only to demonstrate where the stress, or accent, falls in some words. Also, thecircumflex is used to mark a long vowel where it would not normally occur (e.g.sî "you are").
a is usuallyopen and is pronounced like thea infather when it is the final, unstressed vowel, its pronunciation is indistinct and approaches the sound of theschwa
stressed, opene is pronounced like thee inbet stressed, closede is pronounced like thea infame except that it does not die off intoee unstressede is pronounced as aschwa
stressed, openo is pronounced like theo inoften stressed, closedo is pronounced like theo inclosed except that it does not die off intooo unstressedo is pronounced as aschwa
when followed bye ori the pronunciation is somewhere between thesh inshare and thech inchore, especially after a vowel otherwise it is like thek inskip (not like thec incall, which isaspirated) in both casesvoiced aftern
g
/d͡ʒ/, /ɡ/
when followed bye ori the pronunciation is like theg ofGerman, always geminated when preceded by another vowel otherwise it is like theg ingum
pronounced the same as in Englishsound unless it comes before a consonant other than/tdnrl/ pronounced asds inlads aftern pronounced as Englishz befored or aftern
when between two vowels it sounds very much like the Americantt inbutter but in reality it is a single tic of a trilledr when at the beginning of a word or when preceded by or followed by another consonant, it is trilled
represented by orthographicqu, pronounced the same as in English
h
h is always silent and is only used to differentiate words pronounced the same and otherwise spelled alike (e.g.a,ha;anno,hanno) and afterg orc to preserve the hard sound whene ori follows (e.g.ce,che;gi,ghi)
x
/k(ə)s/
pronounced like thecks inbacks or like thecchus inBacchus; this consonant sequence does not occur in native Neapolitan or Italian words
The Neapolitan classicaldefinite articles (corresponding to the English word "the") area (feminine singular),o (masculine singular) andi (plural for both).
Before a word beginning with a consonant:
Singular
Plural
Masculine
’o
’e
Feminine
’a
’e C:
Neuter
’o C:
∅
"C:" = the initial consonant of the following word isgeminated if followed by a vowel.
These definite articles are always pronounced distinctly.
Before a word beginning with a vowel,l’ orll’ are used for both masculine and feminine, singular and plural. Although both forms can be found, thell’ form is by far the most common.
In Neapolitan, thegender of a noun is not easily determined by the article, so other means must be used. In the case of’o, which can be either masculine singular or neuter singular (there is no neuter plural in Neapolitan), the initial consonant of the noun is doubled when it is neuter. For example, the name of a language in Neapolitan is always neuter, so if we see’o nnapulitano we know it refers to the Neapolitan language, whereas’o napulitano would refer to a Neapolitan man.
Likewise, since’e can be either masculine or feminine plural, when it is feminine plural, the initial consonant of the noun is doubled. For example, consider’a lista, which in Neapolitan is feminine singular, meaning "the list". In the plural, it becomes’e lliste.
There can also be problems with nouns whose singular form ends ine. Since plural nouns usually end ine whether masculine or feminine, the masculine plural is often signaled orthographically, that is, by altering the spelling. As an example, consider the wordguaglione, which means "boy" or (in the feminine form) "girl":
Singular
Plural
Masculine
’o guaglione
’e guagliune
Feminine
’a guagliona
’e gguaglione
More will be said about these orthographically changing nouns in the section on Neapolitan nouns.
A couple of notes about consonant doubling:
Doubling is a function of the article (and certain other words), and these same words may be seen in other contexts without the consonant doubled. More will be said about this in the section on consonant doubling.
Doubling only occurs when a vowel follows the consonant. No doubling occurs if it is followed by another consonant, such as in the wordspagnuolo (Spanish).
In Neapolitan there are four finite moods:indicative,subjunctive,conditional andimperative, and three non-finite modes:infinitive,gerund andparticiple. Each mood has anactive and apassive form. The only auxiliary verbs used in the active form is(h)avé (Eng. "to have", It.avere), which contrasts with Italian, in which the intransitive and reflexive verbs takeèssere for their auxiliary. For example, we have:
All feminine plural nouns, preceded by the feminine plural definite article,’e, or any feminine plural adjective, have their initial consonant doubled.
All neuter singular nouns, when preceded by the neuter singular definite article,’o, or by a neuter singular adjective, have their initial consonant doubled.
In addition, other words also trigger this doubling. Below is a list of words that trigger the doubling of the initial consonant of the following word.
However, when there is a pause after the "trigger" word, the phonological doubling does not occur (e.g.tu sî (g)guaglione, "You are a boy", wheresî is a "trigger" word causing doubling of the initial consonant inguaglione, but in the phrase’e do sî, guaglió? "Where are you from, boy?", no doubling occurs. Neither does doubling occur when the initial consonant is followed by another consonant (other thanl orr), e.g.’o ttaliano "the Italian language", but’o spagnuolo "the Spanish language", where’o is the neuter definite article).This doubling phenomenon happens phonologically (in pronunciation), and the doubling is not required in spelling. The same thing happens in Italian, where multiple words trigger first-consonant doubling, e.g.la casa buta (c)casa,io e (t)te, etc.
Viola Carofalo wearing a T-shirt with Neapolitanje so’ pazzo ("I am crazy.")
The conjunctionse andné but noto (e.g.pane e ccaso;né (p)pane né (c)caso; butpane o caso)
The prepositionsa,pe,cu (e.g.a (m)me;pe (t)te;cu (v)vuje)
The negationnu, short fornun (e.g.nu ddicere niente)
The indefinitesogne,cocche (e.g.ogne (c)casa;cocche (c)cosa)
Interrogativeche and relativeche but notca (e.g.che (p)piense?che (f)femmena!che (c)capa!)
accussí (e.g.accussí (b)bello)
From the verb "essere",so’;sî;è but notsongo (e.g.je so’ (p)pazzo;tu sî (f)fesso;chella è (M)Maria;chilli so’ (c)cafune butchilli songo cafune)
chiú (e.g.chiú (p)poco)
The numbertre (e.g.tre (s)segge)
The neuter definite article’o (e.g.’o (p)pane, butnu poco ’e pane)
The neuter pronoun’o (e.g.’o (t)tiene ’o (p)pane?)
Demonstrative adjectiveschistu andchillu which refer to neuter nouns in indefinite quantities (e.g.chistu (f)fierro;chillu (p)pane) but not in definite quantities (e.g.Chistu fierro;chillu pane)
The feminine plural definite article’e (e.g.’e (s)segge;’e (g)guaglione)
The plural feminine pronoun’e, e.g.,’e (g)guaglione ’e (c)chiamme tu? "
The plural masculine pronoun’e preceding a verb, but not when’e is an article; in’e guagliune ’e (c)chiamme tu?, the first'e is an article, so it does not trigger doubling; the second'e does trigger doubling because it is a masculine plural pronoun.
Iandolo, Carlo (2001).A lengua 'e Pulecenella: Grammatica napoletana (in Italian). Sorrento: Franco Di Mauro.ISBN978-8885263710.
De Blasi, Nicola; Imperatore, Luigi (2001).Il napoletano parlato e scritto: Con note di grammatica storica [Written and Spoken Neapolitan: With Notes on Historic Grammar] (in Italian) (2nd ed.). Napoli: Dante & Descartes.ISBN978-8888142050.
Verde, Massimiliano (17 June 2017)."Consegnato il primo Certificato Europeo di Lingua Napoletana" [Granted the first European Certificate of the Neapolitan language].NapoliToday (in Italian). First Course of Neapolitan Language according to the QCER CEFR with the Patronage of City of Naples realized by Dr.Massimiliano Verde "Corso di Lingua e Cultura Napoletana" with a document of study in Neapolitan Language by Dr.Verde
First public document in Neapolitan Language of the XXI century according to a text of Dr.Verde; the touristic Map of the III Municipality of Naples in Neapolitan Language:
^abIn recent studies on Neapolitan variants in Campania, there has been a tendency to mark silent vowels – pronounced asschwas ⟨ə⟩ – withdiaeresis (◌̈). While it may help novice speakers, it is not an established trait of the Neapolitan language.
^Venetian is either grouped with the rest of the Italo-Dalmatian or the Gallo-Italic languages, depending on the linguist.
