Aspetta

[darkerhorse]

I'm not positive, but i think my older relatives pronounced "aspetta" as "ashpetta" or even "ashpett", slipping in an "h" sound.

A friend with ancestry from Naples thinks I'm wrong.

I listened to the Godfather movie again and the pronunciation of "aspetta" wasn't clear but it sounded more like "aspetta" without the "h" that I remember.

Comments?

[TerraLavoro]

https://www.wikinapoli.com/italian/neapolitan#h.p_ID_58

sh" sounds are added where not normally found in the standard dialect (e.g. "ci", "ce", "sc", "sp", "sf" and "sq" all have the sound)

Gotta love that Napulitano!

[darkerhorse]

Thanks for your reply.

My family is Sicilian.

My American friend's family is Napolitano, but he learned proper Italian, and he wasn't aware of the "sh" sound. I suppose it's also found in the Napolitano dialect.

I've since heard that when s is followed by a consonant Sicilians may add h after the s. For example, aspetto is ashpetto because s is followed by a consonant, p.

[suanj]

In neapolitan dialect, the ASPETTA (italian) is pronounced ASCPITT that could be translate, like english pronounce of AH-SHP-ETT, yes right.

[MarcuccioV]

Our family (combo of Roman, Neapolitan, Abruzzese, Sicilian and Barese) adds the "sh" sound (rather prominently). We even pronounce "questo" like "keesh-to". I think Pippo referred to it once as 'parlata burina' (country-speak)...

[darkerhorse]

You sometimes hear that in American English, like "shtreak" for "streak".

I wonder if it follows from a lazy tongue - "st" is a somewhat more difficult mouth position than "sh".

[darkerhorse]

I know what Pippo means. At the airport in Catania, I asked a well-dressed lady for directions to the town of my ancestors, using the local dialect for the town name - "ll" pronounced "dd". She scolded me, pointing out that I sounded uneducated using the dialect pronunciation.

By the way, does use of the dialect apply to proper names? For example, if a person's surname was "Baravelli", would they call him "Baraveddi"?

[MarcuccioV]

I know what Pippo means. At the airport in Catania, I asked a well-dressed lady for directions to the town of my ancestors, using the local dialect for the town name - "ll" pronounced "dd". She scolded me, pointing out that I sounded uneducated using the dialect pronunciation.

My aunt's brother (Sicilian) got a similar comment while visiting around Palermo many years ago -- he had stopped to ask a question or directions from some younger folk who laughed at him, saying he spoke in "the ancient language" (la lingua antica)...

[darkerhorse]

My experience was in 1992. I imagine there's even more such ridicule today.

[MarcuccioV]

My experience was in 1992. I imagine there's even more such ridicule today.

His experience was in the 1970's. Probably much worse, now, as time passes and the older gens die off...

[PippoM]

By the way, does use of the dialect apply to proper names? For example, if a person's surname was "Baravelli", would they call him "Baraveddi"?

As we genealogists know, a surname is just a way to refer to someone who is member of a family. Before 1900, it was extremely variable. In the 1800's, when surnames began to be formalized, much was left to the Town Clerk, who wrote them according to how they "felt" about them. For instance, I found a lot of records where surnames that sounded "dialectal" or "southern" were "italianized" by the clerk. The most popular is "Russo" that was turned into "Rossi", or those of the kind "Borriello" turned into "Borrelli". I've noticed that they did that expecially for upper class people. Maybe it seemed to them to stress a higher social position.
An uncle of mine, or, more correctly, the husband of an aunt of mine, used to refer to our family as " 'e Muccard' " (MOU-KÄRD). He didn't know, but he was probably using a dialectal version of our surname, that was likely to be the original one.
In the end, dialectal forms should not be applied to surnames, as they are now consolidated. But you might always think of the dialectal form of the surname as a family nickname.

[bbivona]

I know what Pippo means. At the airport in Catania, I asked a well-dressed lady for directions to the town of my ancestors, using the local dialect for the town name - "ll" pronounced "dd". She scolded me, pointing out that I sounded uneducated using the dialect pronunciation.

By the way, does use of the dialect apply to proper names? For example, if a person's surname was "Baravelli", would they call him "Baraveddi"?

Sicilians over about age 45 or so (at least over in province of Trapani) speak Sicilian language routinely with family and friends. They don't do it in in public places with people that they don't know; all standard Italian in that context. If you spoke to them in Sicilian it would have been odd for them, as it's not what they themselves would do. Someone who routinely speaks Sicilian with friends would never speak Sicilian to a stranger in an airport. I am not a proficient Sicilian speaker although I know some of the language. There are a few middle aged/older guys that do some work at my house there that pretty much only speak Sicilian and I've worked on learning some in order to communicate better with them. When I speak to them in Italian they speak Sicilian back to me so I do my best with Sicilian, but I would never speak it with someone I didn't know.

As for your other questions elsewhere in the thread on pronunciation, speaking Italian in Sicily is different than speaking it elsewhere. Sicilians speak Italian with a notable accent. The "sh" sound you mentioned does occur a lot. "Aspetta" often sounds like "ashpetta" although the "sh" isn't quite as strong as we would do it in English - sort of halfway between "s" and "sh". The "c" sound followed by "i" or "e" is also more often than not a "sh" sound: Sicilia sounds like "Sishilia" and piacere sounds like "piashere". Fifty five sounds like shinquanta shinque. There are also a lot of vowel sounds that sound different when spoken by a native Sicilian than by someone from the north. Not to mention the use of Sicilian verbs when speaking Italian. In normal conversation in Italian (not Sicilian) you'll hear people use

taliari instead of guardare
trasiri instead of entrare
travagghiari instead of lavorare
scantari instead of spaventare
nèsciri instead uscire

and many others. It's not like speaking Italian elsewhere!

[darkerhorse]

I wasn't speaking Sicilian, I was just asking a question in English and pronouncing the town's name in dialect.

[darkerhorse]

By the way, does use of the dialect apply to proper names? For example, if a person's surname was "Baravelli", would they call him "Baraveddi"?

As we genealogists know, a surname is just a way to refer to someone who is member of a family. Before 1900, it was extremely variable. In the 1800's, when surnames began to be formalized, much was left to the Town Clerk, who wrote them according to how they "felt" about them. For instance, I found a lot of records where surnames that sounded "dialectal" or "southern" were "italianized" by the clerk. The most popular is "Russo" that was turned into "Rossi", or those of the kind "Borriello" turned into "Borrelli". I've noticed that they did that expecially for upper class people. Maybe it seemed to them to stress a higher social position.
An uncle of mine, or, more correctly, the husband of an aunt of mine, used to refer to our family as " 'e Muccard' " (MOU-KÄRD). He didn't know, but he was probably using a dialectal version of our surname, that was likely to be the original one.
In the end, dialectal forms should not be applied to surnames, as they are now consolidated. But you might always think of the dialectal form of the surname as a family nickname.

Yes, I've never heard an Italian surname pronounced in dialect, at least not here in the U.S.

I suspect illiteracy contributed to name variations across the world. Census takers here would spell a surname the way it sounded when pronounced by an illiterate respondent.

[darkerhorse]

Sanskrit is a mother language (if not the mother language).

It has three "s" sounds: as in the German word sprechen, and the English words shine, and sun.

The "s" sound you describe sounds like it might be the "s" in sprechen.

You can listen to it here:
https://translate.google.com/?sl=de&tl= ... =translate