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Writing system
Main article:Italian alphabet
The Italian alphabet has only 21 letters. The letters j, k, w,
x, y are excluded, though
they appear in loanwords such asjeans, whisky and taxi. The
letterx has becomecommon in standard Italian with the prefix
extra-, although (e)stra-[32][33]is traditionallyused. The letterj
originated as an archaic orthographic variant ofi. It appears in
thefirst nameJacopo and in some Italian place-names, such
asBajardo,Bojano,Joppolo,Jerzu,Jesolo,Jesi,Ajaccio, among numerous
others. It also appears inMar Jonio, analternative spelling ofMar
Ionio (theIonian Sea). The letterj may appear in dialectalwords,
but its use is discouraged in contemporary standard Italian. The
foreign letters
can be substituted withphoneticallyequivalent native Italian
letters anddigraphs:gi
orge forj; c orch fork (including in the standard prefix kilo-);
o, u orvforw; s, ss, z, zz orcs forx; and e ori fory.
Theacute accentis used overe to indicate a stressedfront
close-mid vowel, asinperch "why, because". In dictionaries, it is
also used overo to indicate astressedback close-mid vowel(azine).
Thegrave accentis used overe toindicate afront open-mid vowel, as
in t "tea". The grave accent is used overany vowel to indicate
word-final stress, as ingiovent "youth". Unlike , astressed final o
is always aback open-mid vowel(andr), making unnecessary outside of
dictionaries. Most of the time, the penultimate syllable is
stressed. But if the stressed vowel is the final letter of the
word, the accent is
mandatory, otherwise it is not (unlike inSpanish) and virtually
always omitted.
Exceptions are typically either in dictionaries, where all
stressed vowels are
commonly marked if they are either in a syllable other than the
penultimate, orare an e or an o; or for disambiguating words that
differ only by stress, as for
prncipi "princes" andprincpi "principles". For monosyllabic
words, the rule isdifferent: when two identical monosyllabic words
with different meanings exist,
the accent is compulsory on one and forbidden on the other
(example: "is", e"and"). Rare, polysyllabic words can have doubtful
stress.Istanbulcan beaccented on the first (stanbul) or second
syllable (Istnbul). The U.S. statenameFloridais pronounced in
Italian as in Spanish with stress on the secondsyllable (Florda).
Because of an Italian word with the same spelling butdifferent
stress (flrida "flourishing") and because of the English
pronunciation,most Italians pronounceFlorida with stress on the
first syllable. Dictionariesgive the latter as an alternative
pronunciation.[34]
The letterh distinguishes ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative
ofavere "tohave") from o ("or"), ai ("to the"), a ("to"), anno
("year"). In the spokenlanguage, the letter is always silent. The h
in ho additionally marks thecontrasting open pronunciation of the
o. The letterh is also used incombinations with other letters.
Nophoneme[h] exists in Italian. In nativised
foreign words, the h is silent. For example, hoteland
hovercraftarepronounced /otl/ and /verkraft/ respectively. (Where h
existed in Latin, iteither disappeared or, in a few cases before a
back vowel, changed to [g]: traggo
"I pull" < Lat. TRAH.)
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The letters s and z can symbolizevoicedorvoicelessconsonants.
zsymbolizes /dz/ or /ts/ depending on context, with few minimal
pairs. For
example:zanzara/dzandzara/ "mosquito" and nazione/nattsjone/
"nation".s symbolizes /s/ word-initially before a vowel, when
clustered with a voiceless
consonant (p, f, c, ch), and when doubled; it symbolizes /z/
when between
vowels and when clustered with voiced consonants. Intervocalic s
variesregionally between /s/ and /z/.
The letters c and g vary in pronunciation
betweenplosivesandaffricatesdepending on following vowels. The
letterc symbolizes /k/ when word-final
and before the back vowels a, o, u. It symbolizes /t/ as in
chairbefore thefront vowels e, i. The letterg symbolizes // when
word-final and before the
back vowels a, o, u. It symbolizes /d/ as ingem before the front
vowels e, i.Other Romance languages and, to an extent,Englishhave
similar variations for
c, g. Comparehard and soft C,hard and soft G. (See
alsopalatalization.)
Thedigraphsch and gh indicate or preserve hardness (/k/ and //)
before i,e. The digraphs ci and gi indicate or preserve softness
(/t/ and /d/) beforea, o, u. For example:
Before back vowel (A, O, U) Before front vowel (I, E)
PlosiveC caramella /karamlla/candy CH china /kina/India ink
G gallo /allo/rooster GH ghiro /iro/edible dormouse
AffricateCI ciaramella /taramlla/shawm C Cina /tina/China
GI giallo /dallo/yellow G giro /diro/round,tourNote: h
issilentin the digraphsch,gh; and i is silent in the digraphs
ci
and gi before a, o, u unless the i is stressed. For example, it
is silent inciao/ta.o/ and cielo /t.lo/, but it is pronounced
infarmacia/far.mati.a/ andfarmacie/far.mati.e/.
Italian has geminate, or double, consonants, which are
distinguished bylengthand
intensity. Length is distinctive for all consonants except for
//, /ts/, /dz/, //, //, which
are always geminate, and /z/, which is always single. Geminate
plosives and affricates
are realised as lengthened closures. Geminate fricatives,
nasals, and /l/ are realized as
lengthenedcontinuants. There is only one vibrant phoneme /r/ but
the actual
pronunciation depends on context and regional accent. Generally
one can find a flap
consonant [] in unstressed position while [r] is more common in
stressed syllables, but
there may be exceptions. Especially people from the Northern
part of Italy (Parma,
Aosta Valley,South Tyrol) may pronounce /r/ as [], [], or
[].[35]
Of special interest to the linguistic study of Italian is
thegorgia toscana, or "TuscanThroat", the weakening orlenitionof
certainintervocalicconsonants in theTuscan
language.
Thevoiced postalveolar fricative// is only present in loanwords:
for example,garage
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