Recommendations on learning Southern Italian Language

[mdvukas]

Would like to learn the language but I'm wondering about the different Italian dialects. I have many relatives still living in Southern Italy but cannot communicate with them because of the language barrier.

I'm looking for recommendations on the best way to learn?

[DeFilippis78]

I myself am trying to learn Italian but in everything I looked for, its always true Italian. Ive never seen anything about learning dialects as far as books or software. The best way to learn a dialect I guess is to have someone teach you. The family that you have who speaks it should be the ones to teach you. Have you asked them for some help?

Alicia

[mdvukas]

Unfortunately, I live in the US and they live in Italy.

I guess I do have a dumb question. Is the written Italian universal?

[DeFilippis78]

Oh you mean like all Italian written is the same and can be read by everyone regardless of dialect? Good question, Im not sure about that.Maybe someone else can answer. Its sort of like language in America. We all have different accents and maybe used different words in different parts of the country but anyone of us can read a letter from anyone , anywhere in the country. That works here (depending on literacy level). I would think its the same there as it is here.

Alicia

[mdvukas]

Yes, that's what I'm wondering. If I can learn how to read and write Italian
can anyone in Italy read it regardless of their own Italian dialect?

[misbris]

Yes, a standard Italian language is taught in schools and spoken by educated people everywhere in Italy. The dialects may still be spoken by older people in small towns, and by those who left Italy ( like our grandparents or great grandparents)

However if you study Italian, you will learn the language understood throughout Italy.

[MaurizioPerrone]

The best way to learn a dialect I guess is to have someone teach you. The family that you have who speaks it should be the ones to teach you. Have you asked them for some help?

For foreign person (from England, U.S.A.) is better to learn the Italian language, because the dialect of the towns sometimes they are very diverse and you cannot communicate them outside the town or maybe the neighbor towns. If you want to learn some of the dialect words from your family maybe for culture reason, is best I think to spend live months in the home village, but also you can communicate with your family in Italian because it is spoken by everyone in Italy.

[mdvukas]

Thanks for the information

[Lili2]

You will be far better off learning proper Italian. Ive visited Sicily 4 times and have learnt the hard way that the Sicilian dialect that my parents taught me is no longer used much at all. When my cousins werent laughing at my dialect they were thrown by my Australian accent. The 80 year olds thought I was great!
Lili

[GrecoCalabrese]

Oh you mean like all Italian written is the same and can be read by everyone regardless of dialect? Good question, Im not sure about that.Maybe someone else can answer. Its sort of like language in America. We all have different accents and maybe used different words in different parts of the country but anyone of us can read a letter from anyone , anywhere in the country. That works here (depending on literacy level). I would think its the same there as it is here.

Alicia

When these dialects were being spoken, they were so different that people in different regions couldn't understand each other. It is NOT like American accents, and the reason for this was Italy has a very diverse history before it was unified as a country, and as for writing, many people in the days when dialect were dominating could not read or write.

Today things are different and now standardized Italian is the norm among the younger generations.

[rdel4577]

I just returned from Sicily. I learned "Italian" when I was stationed in Italy in the Air Force. If I heard people speaking to one another in Sicily, I had a very difficult almost impossible time understanding them. When I spoke to them in Italian, they started speaking the Italian that I knew with an accent.

I had no problem wherever I went when I spoke Italian.

Roberto