1.
Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. Those dialects now have considerable variety, as Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
2.
Tuscan dialect
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Tuscan is an Italo-Dalmatian variety mainly spoken in Tuscany, Italy. It would later become the language of all the Italian states. Tuscan is a complex composed of many local variants, with minor differences among them. The main subdivision is between Northern Tuscan dialects and Southern Tuscan dialects, the Northern Tuscan dialects are, Fiorentino, the main dialect of Florence, Chianti and the Mugello region, also spoken in Prato and along the river Arno as far as the city of Fucecchio. Pistoiese, spoken in the city of Pistoia and nearest zones, pesciatino or Valdinievolese, spoken in the Valdinievole zone, in the cities of Pescia and Montecatini Terme. Lucchese, spoken in Lucca and nearby hills, versiliese, spoken in the historical area of Versilia. Viareggino, spoken in Viareggio and vicinity, pisano-Livornese, spoken in Pisa and in Livorno and the vicinity, and along the southern coast as far as the city of Piombino. The Southern Tuscan dialects are, Aretino-Chianaiolo, spoken in Arezzo, senese, spoken in the city and province of Siena. Grossetano, spoken in the city and province of Grosseto, Corsican and Gallurese, Corsican on the island of Corsica, and its variety spoken in Sardinia, are classified by scholars as a direct offshoot from medieval Tuscan. Excluding the inhabitants of Province of Massa and Carrara, who speak an Emilian variety of a Gallo-Italic language, the Tuscan dialect as a whole has certain defining features, with subdialects that are distinguished by minor details. The Tuscan gorgia affects the voiceless stop consonants /k/ /t/ and /p/, between vowels, the voiced post-alveolar affricate consonant is realized as voiced post-alveolar fricative, /dʒ/ →. This phenomenon is evident in daily speech, the phrase la gente, the people, in standard Italian is pronounced. Similarly, the voiceless affricate is pronounced as a voiceless post-alveolar fricative between two vowels, /tʃ/ →. The sequence /la ˈtʃena/ la cena, the dinner, in standard Italian is pronounced, as a result of this weakening rule, there are a few minimal pairs distinguished only by length of the voiceless fricative. A less common phenomenon is the transformation of voiceless s or voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ into the voiceless alveolar affricate when preceded by /r/, /l/. For example, il sole, pronounced in standard Italian as, however, since assimilation of the final consonant of the article to the following consonant tends to occur in exactly such cases the actual pronunciation will be usually. Affrication of /s/ can more commonly be heard word-internally, as in falso /ˈfalso/ → and this is a common phenomenon in Central Italy, but it is not exclusive to that area, for example it also happens in Switzerland. There are two Tuscan historical outcomes of Latin ŏ in stressed open syllables, passing first through a stage, the vowel then develops as a diphthong /wɔ/
3.
Languages of Italy
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There are a large number of local languages spoken in Italy, most of which are indigenous evolutions of Vulgar Latin, and thus are classified as Romance languages. The official and most widely spoken language is Italian, a descendant of Tuscan and this is generally not the case in regards to the languages of Italy, as they are, for the most part, not varieties of Standard Italian. In fact, Standard Italian is itself either a continuation of, or a dialect heavily based on, there are several minority languages that belong to other Indo-European branches, such as Cimbrian, Arbëresh, the Slavomolisano dialect of Serbo-Croatian, and Griko. Other non-indigenous languages are spoken by a percentage of the population due to immigration. The following minority languages are recognized as historical language minorities by the Law no. 482/1999, Albanian, Catalan, German, Greek, Slovene, Croatian, French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin, the selection of those varieties to the exclusion of numerous others is a matter of some controversy. The law also makes a distinction between those who are considered minority groups and those who are not, the original Italian Constitution does not explicitly express that Italian is the official national language. Code for civil procedure – In tutto il processo è prescritto luso della lingua italiana, code for criminal procedure – Gli atti del procedimento penale sono compiuti in lingua italiana. Article 1 of law 482/1999 – La lingua ufficiale della Repubblica è litaliano, aosta Valley, French is co-official in the whole region, German is unofficial but recognised in the Lys Valley. Campania, Neapolitan is promoted, but not recognised, by the region, friuli-Venezia Giulia, Friulian and Slovene are promoted, but not recognised, by the region. Piedmont, Piedmontese is unofficial but recognised as the language, the region promotes, without recognising. Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, German is co-official in the province of South Tyrol, Ladin, Cimbrian and Mòcheno are unofficial, veneto, Venetian is unofficial but recognised. According to the UNESCOs Atlas of the Worlds Languages in Danger, the degree of endangerment is classified in different categories ranging from safe to extinct. The source for the distribution is the Atlas of the Worlds Languages in Danger unless otherwise stated. 30 settlements in northern Calabria as well as San Costantino Albanese and San Paolo Lucano in southern Basilicata, settlements in southern Calabria, all living languages indigenous to Italy are part of the Indo-European language family. The source is the SILs Ethnologue unless otherwise stated, language classification can be a controversial issue, when a classification is contested by academic sources, this is reported in the notes column. They can be divided into Romance languages and non-Romance languages, not included is Corsican, which is mainly spoken on the French island of Corsica. Istriot is only spoken in Croatia, Sardinian is a distinct language group with significant phonological and morphological differences among its varieties
4.
Accademia della Crusca
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The Accademia della Crusca, generally abbreviated as La Crusca, is an Italian society for scholars and Italian linguists and philologists established in Florence. It is the most important research institution on Italian language as well as the oldest linguistic academy in the world, the Accademia was founded in Florence in 1583 and it has been characterized by its efforts to maintain the purity of the Italian language. The academy motto is Il più bel fior ne coglie, a verse of the Italians poet Francesco Petrarca. The academy is a member of the European Federation of National Linguistic Institutes, the Federation has two Italian members, the Accademia della Crusca and the Opera del Vocabolario Italiano del CNR. The founders were called the brigata dei Crusconi and constituted a kind of circle, where the members included poets, men of letters. The Crusconi battled against the classical pedantry of the Accademia through the use of humour, satire, however, it was important that this battle was fought without compromising the primary intention of the group, which was typically literary, and expounded in high quality literary disputes. One of the earliest scholars to influence the work of the Crusca was Agnolo Monosini, the Accademia thus abandoned the jocular character of its earlier meetings in order to take up the normative role it would assume from then on. The very title of the Accademia came to be interpreted in a new way, from this is derived the symbolism of the Crusca, its logo shows a frullone or sifter with the Petrarchan motto Il più bel fior ne coglie. The members of the Accademia were given nicknames associated with corn and flour, the Accademias activities carried on with both high- and low- points until 1783, when Pietro Leopoldo quit and, with several other academicians, created the second Accademia Fiorentina. In the 20th century, the decree of 11 March 1923 changed its composition, in 1955, however, Bruno Migliorini and others began discussion of the return of the work of preparing the Vocabolario to the Crusca. The Italian Academies, in, Collected Essays, vol, II, Renaissance and Reform, the Italian Contribution, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul,1983 ISBN 0-7100-9530-9 Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E
5.
Veronese Riddle
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It was a very popular riddle in the Middle Ages and has survived into dialects to date. Discovered by Luigi Schiaparelli in 1924, it is considered the first document ever written in the Italian language along with the Placiti Cassinesi and this person is the writer himself, the monk whose business is to copy old manuscripts. The two oxen are his fingers which draw a white feather across the page, leaving black ink marks and this document dates to the late 10th-early 11th century and was followed by a small thanksgiving prayer in Latin, gratias tibi agimus omnips sempiterne ds. These lines were written on codex LXXXIX of the Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona and it was then brought to Cagliari and then Pisa before reaching the Chapter of Verona. Many more European documents seem to confirm that the traits of Romance languages occurred all around the same time. Some words stick indeed to the rules of Latin grammar, yet more are distinctly Italian, with no cases and producing the typical ending of Italian verbs, pareba, araba, teneba, seminaba instead of Latin parebat, arabat, tenebat, seminabat. Albo versorio and negro semen have replaced Latin album versorium and nigrum semen, versorio is still the word for plow in todays Veronese dialect as the verb parar is still the word for push on, drive, lead. Michele A. Cortelazzo and Ivano Paccagnella say that the plural -es of boves may well be considered Ladin and therefore not Latin, albo is early Italian, especially since German blank entered Italian usage later, leading to current Italian bianco. Latin language Romance languages Venetian language Italian language Notes Indovinello Veronese Indovinello Veronese
6.
Placiti Cassinesi
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They are considered the first documents ever written in the Italian language along with the Veronese Riddle. Original text, Sao ke kelle terre, per kelle fini que ki contene, capua, Marzo 960 Sao cco kelle terre, per kelle fini que tebe monstrai, Pergoaldi foro, que ki contene, et trenta anni le possette. Sessa, Marzo 963 Kella terra, per kelle fini que bobe mostrai, sancte Marie è, teano, Luglio 963 Sao cco kelle terre, per kelle fini que tebe mostrai, trenta anni le possette parte sancte Marie. Teano, Ottobre 963 Modern Italian, So che quelle terre per quei confini che qui sono contenuti le possedette per trentanni la parte di San Benedetto. Capua, Marzo 960 So che quelle terre, per quei confini che ti mostrai, furono di Pergolardo, sessa, Marzo 963 Quella terra per quei confini che a voi mostrai è di Santa Maria e per trentanni la possedette la parte di Santa Maria. Teano, Luglio 963 So che quelle terre per quei confini che ti mostrai per trentanni le possedette la parte di Santa Maria. Teano, Ottobre 963 Translated, I know those lands, whose borders are shown in the map, have been owned by St. Benedicts region for thirty years. Capua, March 960 I know those lands, whose borders I have showed you, were property of Pergolardo, and here are part of, and it has owned them for thirty years. Sessa, March 963 That land, whose borders I have showed you, is property of St. Marie, teano, July 963 I know those lands, whose borders I have showed you, have been owned by St. Marie for thirty years. With these documents, after the deposition of three witnesses, the judge stated that the three monasteries were the legitimate owners of the lands. Latin language Romance languages Italian language
7.
Sicilian School
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The Sicilian School was a small community of Sicilian, and to a lesser extent, mainland Italian poets gathered around Frederick II, most of them belonging to his court, the Magna Curia. Headed by Giacomo da Lentini, they produced more than three-hundred poems of love between 1230 and 1266, the experiment being continued after Fredericks death by his son, Manfred. These poets drew inspiration from the poetry of Occitania written in langue doc. In the lower Middle Ages more and more women were reading books than ever before and poetry tried to adapt to their point of view and this features French poetry, then very influential in Italy. It is lyric poetry to be in the forefront of literature and that is why the new standard was a Koiné language, a melting pot of many different vernaculars. The reason for moving from city to city was mainly political, frederic was in fact dismantling the feudal system of government inherited from the Normans, his magna curia and minor dignitaries were usually chosen from lay orders. He also abolished internal barriers, free trade brought prosperity to the South, but, keeping this modern state afloat, meant that his barons had no power to collect taxes, their greatest source of revenues. Hence the necessity for Frederick to bring law and order by moving his court to, there is a visible move towards neoplatonic models, which will be embraced by Dolce Stil Novo in the later 13th century Bologna and Florence, and more markedly by Petrarch. Unlike the Northern Italian troubadours, no line is written in Occitan. Rather, the Occitan repertoire of chivalry terms is adapted to the Siculo-Italian phonetics and morphology, so that new Italian words are actually coined, some adapted, a most famous specimen is Io maggio posto in core by Giacomo da Lentini, who apparently inspired the movement. Giacomo da Lentini is also credited by scholars for inventing the sonnet. He uses it in a number of poems, in this respect, the poetry of the north, though stuck to the langues doïl, provided fresher blood for satire. The re-shaping of the Occitan model also involved the suppression of music and that meant no interchangeable lines as in troubadour poetry and fewer repetitions, for a French jongleur who sang his poems these were necessary, but they sounded redundant to the Sicilian authors. Their poetry was music to the eye, not to the ear, the sonnet is even more exacting on this point, the separation between the octave and the sestet is purely a logical one, the rimes drawing a visual line between the first and last part. However, the fact that Italian poetry was being made for the public may have facilitated its circulation. This Contrasto is written in a Sicilian language close to that spoken in the city of Messina, the subject is a humorous fight between two young lovers, a kind of poetry quite common in the Middle Ages. It is about a suitor who sneaks into the garden of a young lady from a rich Sicilian family and secretly declares his love to her. However, the language uses much of the language of lyric poetry
8.
Divine Comedy
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The Divine Comedy is a long narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c.1308 and completed in 1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work in Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature, the poems imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written and it is divided into three parts, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. On the surface, the poem describes Dantes travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise or Heaven, but at a level, it represents, allegorically. At this deeper level, Dante draws on medieval Christian theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy, consequently, the Divine Comedy has been called the Summa in verse. The work was simply titled Comedìa and the word Divina was added by Giovanni Boccaccio. The first printed edition to add the word divina to the title was that of the Venetian humanist Lodovico Dolce, the Divine Comedy is composed of 14,233 lines that are divided into three canticas – Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso – each consisting of 33 cantos. An initial canto, serving as an introduction to the poem and generally considered to be part of the first cantica, the number three is prominent in the work, represented in part by the number of canticas and their lengths. Additionally, the scheme used, terza rima, is hendecasyllabic, with the lines composing tercets according to the rhyme scheme aba, bcb, cdc. Written in the first person, the tells of Dantes journey through the three realms of the dead, lasting from the night before Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter in the spring of 1300. The Roman poet Virgil guides him through Hell and Purgatory, Beatrice, Dantes ideal woman, within each group of 9,7 elements correspond to a specific moral scheme, subdivided into three subcategories, while 2 others of greater particularity are added to total nine. For example, the seven sins of the Catholic Church that are cleansed in Purgatory are joined by special realms for the Late repentant. The core seven sins within Purgatory correspond to a scheme of love perverted, subdivided into three groups corresponding to excessive love, deficient love, and malicious love. In central Italys political struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines, Dante was part of the Guelphs, who in general favored the Papacy over the Holy Roman Emperor, florences Guelphs split into factions around 1300, the White Guelphs and the Black Guelphs. The last word in each of the three canticas is stelle, the poem begins on the night before Good Friday in the year 1300, halfway along our lifes path. Conscious that he is ruining himself and that he is falling into a low place where the sun is silent, Dante is at last rescued by Virgil, the circles number 9, with the addition of Satan completing the structure of 9 +1 =10. Having survived the depths of Hell, Dante and Virgil ascend out of the undergloom to the Mountain of Purgatory on the far side of the world. The Mountain is on an island, the land in the Southern Hemisphere
9.
Accademia degli Arcadi
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The Accademia degli Arcadi or Accademia dellArcadia, Academy of Arcadia or Academy of the Arcadians, was an Italian literary academy founded in Rome in 1690. The full Italian official name was Pontificia Accademia degli Arcadi, there she became a significant patron of music and opera, with composers including Alessandro Scarlatti, Alessandro Stradella and Arcangelo Corelli dedicating works to her. After her death in 1689, the academy was established in her memory, the Academy lasted for the next two hundred years, remaining a leading cultural institution into the 20th century. The Academy chose as its emblem the pipe of Pan with its seven unequal reeds, the fourteen founders selected as the first Custode di Arcadia or president of the academy, Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni who was the author of a history of Italian poetry and of various literary works. The Arcadians resolved to return to the fields of truth, always singing of subjects of pastoral simplicity, the ideal parameters for the artistic work were simplicity and a sense of measure and beauty. Common to all the poets was the desire to oppose the poetry of the Marinists, norms and rituals of the academy took their cue from classic and pastoral mythology, as in the custom of assuming pastoral names. The fourteen founder members included the librettist Silvio Stampiglia, the first solemn gathering of the Arcadians was held on the Janiculum hill, in a wood belonging to the Reformed Minorites, on 5 October 1690. In 1692, the meetings were transferred to the gardens of Duke Orsini on the Esquiline hill, in 1696, to the Farnese gardens on the Palatine. Finally, the generosity of John V of Portugal, one of its members under the name of Arete Melleo, here they held their meetings in summer days, in winter moving to the Teatro degli Arcadi in the Palazzo Salviati. In 1696 the Accademia admitted seven musicians including Giovanni Bononcini, while the academy was still on the Palatine, its Statuto or Constitution was drawn up. This constitution was modelled on the ancient Roman laws of the Twelve Tables, because of these differences Gravina left to found the Accademia dei Quirini in 1711. Despite this loss, Arcadia retained its vigour in the following years, many noblemen, ecclesiastics, and artists held membership of it to be an honour, and very soon it numbered 1,300. The celebrated opera librettist Pietro Metastasio although he had his own differences with Arcadia, was a student of Gravinas, and a leading light of the academys second generation. His works, of which the best remembered might be Il Re Pastore because of its setting by Mozart, may represent the closest thing to a justification of its program that Arcadia achieved. In 1795, the academy admitted the Italian Diodata Saluzzo Roero, as one of its first female members, a violent anti-Arcadian reaction soon developed, and, starting from the early 19th century, Arcadianism began to be regarded as a late and unconvincing expression of the ancien régime. The Academy no longer represented a literary school, but a general interest in the classics, furthermore, the Academys field of endeavour was enlarged to include many branches of study, including history and archaeology. The new Arcadian revival was marked by the foundation of the Giornale Arcadico, in 1925 the Academy was renamed to become the Arcadia - Accademia Letteraria Italiana, a historical institute. The Accademia degi Arcadi counted among its members some of the literary men of the time, including Menzini, Redi, Metastasio, Rolli, Guidi
10.
The Betrothed (Manzoni novel)
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The Betrothed is an Italian historical novel by Alessandro Manzoni, first published in 1827, in three volumes. It has been called the most famous and widely read novel in the Italian language. Set in northern Italy in 1628, during the years of direct Spanish rule, it is seen as a veiled attack on the Austrian Empire. It is also noted for the description of the plague that struck Milan around 1630. I promessi sposi was made into an opera of the name by Amilcare Ponchielli in 1856. There have been many versions of I promessi sposi, including I promessi sposi, The Betrothed The Betrothed. In May 2015, at a general audience at St. Peters Square. Manzoni hatched the basis for his novel in 1821 when he read a 1627 Italian edict that specified penalties for any priest who refused to perform a marriage when requested to do so, more material for his story came from Giuseppe Ripamontis Milanese Chronicles. The first version, Fermo e Lucia, was written between April 1821 and September 1823 and he then heavily revised it, finishing in August 1825, it was published on 15 June 1827, after two years of corrections and proof-checking. Manzonis chosen title, Gli sposi promessi, was changed for the sake of euphony shortly before its final commitment to printing, in the early 19th century, there was still some controversy as to what form the standard literary language of Italy should take. Manzoni was firmly in favour of the dialect of Florence and, after washing his vocabulary on the banks of the Arno, Renzo and Lucia, a couple in an unnamed Lombard village near Lake Como, are planning to wed on 8 November 1628. The parish priest, Don Abbondio, is walking home on the eve of the wedding when he is accosted by two bravoes who warn him not to perform the marriage, because the local baron has forbidden it. When he presents himself for the ceremony, Renzo is amazed to hear that the marriage is to be postponed. An argument ensues and Renzo succeeds in extracting from the priest the name of Don Rodrigo and it turns out that Don Rodrigo has his eye on Lucia and that he had a bet about her with his cousin Count Attilio. Lucias mother, Agnese, advises Renzo to ask the advice of Dr. Azzeccagarbugli, Dr. Lucia sends a message to Fra Cristoforo, a respected Capuchin friar at the monastery of Pescarenico, asking him to come as soon as he can. When Don Rodrigo is taken aside by the friar, he explodes with anger at his presumption and sends him away, meanwhile, Lorenzo comes up with a plan. In those days, it was possible for two people to marry by declaring themselves married before a priest and in the presence of two amenable witnesses, Renzo runs to his friend Tonio and offers him 25 lire if he agrees to help. When Fra Cristoforo returns with the bad news, they decide to put their plan into action, the next morning, Lucia and Agnese are visited by beggars, Don Rodrigos men in disguise
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Italian literature
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Italian literature is written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in Italy in other languages spoken in Italy, an early example of Italian literature is the tradition of vernacular lyric poetry performed in Occitan, which reached Italy by the end of the 12th century. In 1230, the Sicilian School is notable for being the first style in standard Italian, Dante Alighieri, one of the greatest of Italian poets, is notable for his Divine Comedy. Petrarch did classical research and wrote lyric poetry, Renaissance humanism developed during the 14th and the beginning of the 15th centuries. Humanists sought to create a citizenry able to speak and write with eloquence, early humanists, such as Petrarch, were great collectors of antique manuscripts. Lorenzo de Medici shows the influence of Florence on the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci wrote a treatise on painting. The development of the drama in the 15th century was very great, the fundamental characteristic of the era following Renaissance is that it perfected the Italian character of its language. Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini were the originators of the science of history. Pietro Bembo was a figure in the development of the Italian language. In 1690 the Academy of Arcadia was instituted with the goal of restoring literature by imitating the simplicity of the ancient shepherds with sonnets, madrigals, canzonette and blank verse. In the 18th century, the condition of Italy began to improve. Apostolo Zeno and Metastasio are two of the figures of the age. Carlo Goldoni, a Venetian, created the comedy of character, the leading figure of the literary revival of the 18th century was Giuseppe Parini. The ideas behind the French Revolution of 1789 gave a direction to Italian literature in the second half of the 18th century. Love of liberty and desire for equality created a literature aimed at national object, patriotism and classicism were the two principles that inspired the literature that began with Vittorio Alfieri. Other patriots included Vincenzo Monti and Ugo Foscolo, the romantic school had as its organ the Conciliatore established in 1818 at Milan. The main instigator of the reform was Manzoni, the great poet of the age was Giacomo Leopardi. History returned to its spirit of learned research, after the Risorgimento, political literature becomes less important
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Music of Italy
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The music of Italy ranges across a broad spectrum of opera and instrumental classical music and a body of popular music drawn from both native and imported sources. Music has traditionally one of the cultural markers of Italian national and ethnic identity and holds an important position in society. Instrumental and vocal music is an iconic part of Italian identity, spanning experimental art music and international fusions to symphonic music. Opera is integral to Italian musical culture, and has become a segment of popular music. Italian folk music is an important part of the musical heritage. Italian music has held up in high esteem in history. More than other elements of Italian culture, Italian music is generally eclectic, No parochial protectionist movement has ever attempted to keep Italian music pure and free from foreign influence, except briefly under the Fascist regime of the 1920s and 30s. As a result, Italian music has elements of the many peoples that have dominated or influenced the country, including French, German. The countrys historical contributions to music are also an important part of national pride, Italy has a strong sense of national identity through distinctive culture - a sense of an appreciation of beauty and emotionality, which is strongly evidenced in the music. Cultural, political and social issues are also expressed through music in Italy. Allegiance to music is integrally woven into the identity of Italians. Most folk musics are localized, and unique to a region or city. The musical output of Italy remains characterized by diversity and creative independence a rich variety of types of expression. With the growing industrialization that accelerated during the 20th and 21st century, Italian society gradually moved from a base to an urban. Immigration from North Africa, Asia, and other European countries led to diversification of Italian music. Traditional music came to exist only in pockets, especially as part of dedicated campaigns to retain local musical identities. Music and politics have been intertwined for centuries in Italy, composers who strayed ran certain risks. Among the best known of such cases was the Neapolitan composer Domenico Cimarosa, when the republic fell, he was tried for treason along with other revolutionaries
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Italian philosophy
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Italy over the ages has had a vast influence on Western philosophy, beginning with the Greeks and Romans, and going onto Renaissance humanism, the Age of Enlightenment and modern philosophy. Roman philosophy was influenced by that of Greece. Italian Medieval philosophy was mainly Christian, and included several important philosophers, Aquinas was the student of Albert the Great, a brilliant Dominican experimentalist, much like the Franciscan, Roger Bacon of Oxford in the 13th century. Aquinas reintroduced Aristotelian philosophy to Christianity and he believed that there was no contradiction between faith and secular reason. He believed that Aristotle had achieved the pinnacle in the human striving for truth and he was a professor at the prestigious University of Paris. The Renaissance was an essentially Italian movement, and also a period of the arts. As with all periods, there is a drift of dates, reasons for categorization. In particular, the Renaissance, more than later periods, is thought to begin in Italy with the Italian Renaissance and roll through Europe. Renaissance Humanism was a European intellectual movement that was a component of the Renaissance, beginning in Florence in the latter half of the 14th century. The humanist movement developed from the rediscovery by European scholars of Latin literary, initially, a humanist was simply a scholar or teacher of Latin literature. Humanism offered the necessary intellectual and philological tools for the first critical analysis of texts, an early triumph of textual criticism by Lorenzo Valla revealed the Donation of Constantine to be an early medieval forgery produced in the Curia. Italian Renaissance humanists believed that the arts should be practiced by all levels of richness. They also approved of self, human worth and individual dignity and they hold the belief that everything in life has a determinate nature, but mans privilege is to be able to choose his own path. He finally took thought concerning the creation of man, the nature of all other beings is limited and constrained within the bounds of law. Thou shalt have the power to degenerate into the forms of life. Thou shalt have the power, out of thy souls judgement, to be born into the higher forms, Italy was also affected by a movement called Neoplatonism, which was a movement which had a general revival of interest in Classical antiquity. Interest in Platonism was especially strong in Florence under the Medici, in 1459 John Argyropoulos was lecturing on Greek language and literature at Florence, and Marsilio Ficino became his pupil. Following suggestions laid out by Gemistos Plethon, Ficino tried to synthesize Christianity and his most famous work was The Prince
14.
Italian phonology
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The phonology of Italian describes the sound system—the phonology and phonetics—of Standard Italian and its geographical variants. Notes, Between two vowels, or between a vowel and an approximant or a liquid, consonants can be both singleton or geminated, geminated consonants shorten the preceding vowel and the first geminated element is unreleased. For example, compare /fato/ with /fatto/, however, /ɲɲ/, /ʃʃ/, /ʎʎ/, are always geminated word-internally. Similarly, nasals, liquids, and sibilants are pronounced slightly longer before medial consonant clusters, /z/ is the only consonant that cannot be geminated. /t, d/ are laminal denti-alveolar, commonly called dental for simplicity, /k, ɡ/ are pre-velar before /i, e, ɛ, j/. The stop components of the apical affricates is actually laminal denti-alveolar, /m/ and /n/ do not contrast before /p, b/ and /f, v/, where they are pronounced and, respectively. In a large number of accents, /ʎ/ is a fricative, some accents from central Italy do not have the /ʎ/ sound, instead, it is pronounced as, or, sometimes. /r/ is sometimes reduced to a single vibration when single, but it remains potentially a trill and it can only contrast between two vowels within a word. There are many words in which dictionaries now indicate that both pronunciations with /z/ and with /s/ are acceptable, the two phonemes have merged in many regional varieties of Italian, either into /z/ or /s/. Geminate /ss/ can be pronounced as single, in Italian there is no phonemic distinction between long and short vowels, but vowels in stressed open syllables, unless word-final, are long. Adjacent identical vowels found at morpheme boundaries are not resyllabified, but pronounced separately, although Italian contrasts close-mid and open-mid vowels in stressed syllables, this distinction is neutralised in unstressed position, where only the close-mid vowels occur. The height of these vowels in unstressed position is context-sensitive, they are lowered in the vicinity of more open vowels. Word-final stressed /ɔ/ is found in a number of words, però, ciò, Giò, and the first person singular future of all verbs. Major exceptions are onomatopoeic terms, loanwords, and place or family names of Sardinian origin, when the last phoneme of a word is an unstressed vowel and the first phoneme of the following word is any vowel, the former vowel tends to become non-syllabic. This phenomenon is called synalepha and should be taken in account when counting syllables, the practice of referring to them as ‘diphthongs’ has been criticised by phoneticians like Luciano Canepari. Italian allows up to three consonants in syllable-initial position, though there are limitations, CC /s/ + any voiceless stop or /f/, E. g. spavento /z/ + any voiced stop, /v d͡ʒ m n l r/. E. g. srotolare /f v/, or any stop + /r/, E. g. frana /f v/, or any stop except /t d/ + /l/. E. g. platano /f v s z/, or any stop or nasal + /j w/
15.
Latin alphabet
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The Latin alphabet is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. It is the script of the English language and is often referred to simply as the alphabet in English. It is an alphabet which originated in the 7th century BC in Italy and has changed continually over the last 2500 years. It has roots in the Semitic alphabet and its offshoot alphabets, the Phoenician, Greek, the phonetic values of some letters changed, some letters were lost and gained, and several writing styles developed. Two such styles, the minuscule and majuscule hands, were combined into one script with alternate forms for the lower and upper case letters, due to classicism, modern uppercase letters differ only slightly from their classical counterparts. The Latin alphabet started out as uppercase serifed letters known as roman square capitals, the lowercase letters evolved through cursive styles that developed to adapt the formerly inscribed alphabet to being written with a pen. Throughout the ages, many stylistic variations of each letter have evolved that are still identified as being the same letter. From the Cumae alphabet, the Etruscan alphabet was derived, the Latins ultimately adopted 21 of the original 26 Etruscan letters. Gaius Julius Hyginus, who recorded much Roman mythology, mentions in Fab, the Parcae, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos invented seven Greek letters — A B H T I Y. Others say that Mercury invented them from the flight of cranes, which, palamedes, too, son of Nauplius, invented eleven letters, Simonides, too, invented four letters — Ó E Z PH, Epicharmus of Sicily, two — P and PS. The Greek letters Mercury is said to have brought to Egypt, Cadmus in exile from Arcadia, took them to Italy, and his mother Carmenta changed them to Latin to the number of 15. Apollo on the added the rest. The original Latin alphabet was, The oldest Latin inscriptions do not distinguish between /ɡ/ and /k/, representing both by C, K and Q according to position, K was used before A, Q was used before O or V, C was used elsewhere. This is explained by the fact that the Etruscan language did not make this distinction, C originated as a turned form of Greek Gamma and Q from Greek Koppa. In later Latin, K survived only in a few such as Kalendae, Q survived only before V. G was later invented to distinguish between /ɡ/ and /k/, it was simply a C with an additional diacritic. C stood for /ɡ/ I stood for both /i/ and /j/, V stood for both /u/ and /w/. K was marginalized in favour of C, which stood for both /ɡ/ and /k/
16.
'Nduja
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Nduja is a particularly spicy, spreadable pork salumi from Italy. It is typically made with parts of the pig such as the shoulder and belly, as well as tripe, roasted peppers and it is a Calabrian variation of salumi, loosely based on the French andouille introduced in the 13th century by the Angevins. Nduja is made using meat from the head, trimmings from various cuts, some clean skin, fatback. Nduja originates from the part of Calabria, namely from the small town of Spilinga. It is mainly served with slices of bread or with ripe cheese and its unique taste makes it suitable for a variety of dishes. For example, it can be added to pasta sauces
17.
Jesolo
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Jesolo is a seaside resort town and comune in the province of Venice, Italy. The town lies north of Venice, between Eraclea and Cavallino-Treporti, Jesolo gives its name to a lagoon of 22 square kilometres on the Adriatic Sea between the rivers Sile and Piave. The urbanized area lies on an island of sorts, delimited by the rivers Piave and Sile, in Roman times the lagoon extended over the area now occupied by the town. There were several islands in the lagoon, the biggest of which was known as Equilium and it is thought that Jesolo represents a corruption of this name. The citys economy is based on tourism. Jesolo is a resort with abundant holiday facilities and its 15-kilometre beach called Lido di Jesolo. At the height of its life, Jesolo was hosting 6 million tourists per year. Currently these have dropped to around 4.5 million tourists per year due to the competition from new resort towns, petrus de Natalibus, bishop of Equilio from 1370 to his death, and author who compiled the widely circulated book Legends of the Saints
18.
Bettino Craxi
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Benedetto Bettino Craxi was an Italian politician, leader of the Italian Socialist Party from 1976 to 1993 and Prime Minister of Italy from 1983 to 1987. He was the first member of the PSI to hold the office and he led the third-longest government in the Italian Republic, and he is considered one of the most powerful and prominent politicians of the so-called First Republic. Craxi was involved in investigations conducted by Mani Pulite judges in Milan, eventually being convicted for corruption, Craxis govermment and party were also supported by future Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a media magnate and personal friend of Craxi. Bettino Craxi maintained strong links with many leaders of the European left, including Felipe González, Bettino Craxi was born in Milan on 24 February 1934. His father, Vittorio Craxi, was a Sicilian lawyer and anti-fascist who was persecuted by the regime of Benito Mussolini, his mother, Maria Ferrari, was a housewife from SantAngelo Lodigiano. After the war Vittorio Craxi assumed the role of vice-prefect in Milan and then the prefect in Como, a few months later Bettino returned to the college, first in Como and then in Cantù, arriving in a step by start the seminary. Vittorio Craxi stood in the 1948 general election for the Popular Democratic Front, Bettino campaigned for his father and later joined the Italian Socialist Party at the age of 17. Craxi was precocious and ascended to many levels of office at an early age. In November 1956 he was elected councilor in SantAngelo Lodigiano from. In 1961 he was excluded from the Central Committee of the Socialist Party by the new Secretary Francesco De Martino, in 1963 he was appointed leader of the Milan Provincial Secretariat of the PSI and in 1965 Craxi became a member of the National Leadership. Meanwhile in November 1964, he was re-elected city councilor in Milan, continuing his public commitment as assessor for Charity, in 1968 general election Craxi was elected for the first time at the Chamber of Deputies with 23,788 votes, in the constituency of Milan–Pavia. Nel 1970 after the end of the PSU alliance, Craxi became Vice Secretary of the PSI, in 1976 the Secretary Francesco De Martino wrote an article in the Socialist newspaper Avanti. Instead for the PSI those elections were a crushing defeat, the votes went down under the threshold of 10%, De Martino, pointing to a new alliance with the Communists, was forced to resign and opened a serious crisis within the party. Bettino Craxi was appointed to the vacant position of National Secretary of the party, ironically, the old guard saw him as short-lived leader, allowing each faction time to regroup. However, he was able to power and implement his policies. He outlined for a line of alternation between the DC and the left-wing, represented by his party, due to the relations between the PCI and the Soviet Union. Firing automatic weapons, the terrorists killed Moros bodyguards and kidnapped him, in 1978 Craxi decided to change the party logo of the party. He chose a red carnation to represent the new course of the party, the party shrank the size of the old hammer and sickle in the lower part of the symbol
19.
Juventus F.C.
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Juventus Football Club S. p. A. colloquially known as Juve, is a professional Italian association football club based in Turin, Piedmont. The clubs fan base is larger than any other Italian football club and is one of the largest worldwide, support for Juventus is widespread throughout the country and abroad, mainly in countries with a significant presence of Italian immigrants. Juventus is the most successful club in Italian football and one of the most awarded globally, Juventus were founded as Sport-Club Juventus in late 1897 by pupils from the Massimo DAzeglio Lyceum school in Turin, but were renamed as Foot-Ball Club Juventus two years later. The club joined the Italian Football Championship during 1900, during this period the team wore a pink and black kit. Juventus first won the championship in 1905 while playing at their Velodrome Umberto I ground. By this time the colours had changed to black and white stripes. There was a split at the club in 1906, after some of the staff considered moving Juve out of Turin, President Alfred Dick was unhappy with this and left with some prominent players to found FBC Torino which in turn spawned the Derby della Mole. Juventus spent much of this period steadily rebuilding after the split, fiat owner Edoardo Agnelli gained control of the club in 1923, and built a new stadium. This helped the club to its second scudetto in the 1925–26 season beating Alba Roma with a score of 12–1. With star players such as Raimundo Orsi, Luigi Bertolini, Giovanni Ferrari, Juventus moved to the Stadio Comunale, but for the rest of the 1930s and the majority of the 1940s they were unable to recapture championship dominance. After the Second World War, Gianni Agnelli was appointed honorary president, the club added two more league championships to its name in the 1949–50 and 1951–52 seasons, the latter of which was under the management of Englishman Jesse Carver. Two new strikers were signed during 1957–58, Welshman John Charles and Italo-Argentine Omar Sívori and that season saw Juventus awarded with the Golden Star for Sport Excellence to wear on their shirts after becoming the first Italian side to win ten league titles. In the same season, Sívori became the first ever player at the club to win the European Footballer of the Year, the following season they beat Fiorentina to complete their first league and cup double, winning Serie A and Coppa Italia. Boniperti retired in 1961 as the top scorer at the club, with 182 goals in all competitions. During the rest of the decade, the won the league just once more in 1966–67, The 1970s, however. Under former player Čestmír Vycpálek, they won the scudetto in 1971–72 and 1972–73, with such as Roberto Bettega, Franco Causio. During the rest of the decade, they won the league twice more, the Trapattoni era was highly successful in the 1980s, the club started the decade off well, winning the league title three more times by 1984. This meant Juventus had won 20 Italian league titles and were allowed to add a golden star to their shirt
20.
A
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A is the first letter and the first vowel in the ISO basic Latin alphabet. It is similar to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives, the upper-case version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lower-case version can be written in two forms, the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ, the latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. The earliest certain ancestor of A is aleph, the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, in turn, the ancestor of aleph may have been a pictogram of an ox head in proto-Sinaitic script influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs, styled as a triangular head with two horns extended. The Phoenician alphabet letter had a form that served as the base for some later forms. Its name is thought to have corresponded closely to the Hebrew or Arabic aleph, the Etruscans brought the Greek alphabet to their civilization in the Italian Peninsula and left the letter unchanged. During Roman times, there were many variant forms of the letter A, first was the monumental or lapidary style, which was used when inscribing on stone or other permanent mediums. There was also a style used for everyday or utilitarian writing. Variants also existed that were intermediate between the monumental and cursive styles, the known variants include the early semi-uncial, the uncial, and the later semi-uncial. At the end of the Roman Empire, several variants of the cursive minuscule developed through Western Europe. By the 9th century, the Caroline script, which was similar to the present-day form, was the principal form used in book-making. This form was derived through a combining of prior forms, 15th-century Italy saw the formation of the two main variants that are known today. These variants, the Italic and Roman forms, were derived from the Caroline Script version, the Italic form, also called script a, is used in most current handwriting and consists of a circle and vertical stroke. This slowly developed from the fifth-century form resembling the Greek letter tau in the hands of medieval Irish and English writers, the Roman form is used in most printed material, it consists of a small loop with an arc over it. Both derive from the majuscule form, in Greek handwriting, it was common to join the left leg and horizontal stroke into a single loop, as demonstrated by the uncial version shown. Many fonts then made the right leg vertical, in some of these, the serif that began the right leg stroke developed into an arc, resulting in the printed form, while in others it was dropped, resulting in the modern handwritten form. Italic type is used to mark emphasis or more generally to distinguish one part of a text from the rest. There are some other cases aside from italic type where script a, the double ⟨aa⟩ sequence does not occur in native English words, but is found in some words derived from foreign languages such as Aaron and aardvark
21.
Open central unrounded vowel
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The open central unrounded vowel, or low central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. While the International Phonetic Alphabet officially has no dedicated letter for this sound between front and back, it is normally written ⟨a⟩, if precision is required, it can be specified by using diacritics, such as centralized ⟨ä⟩ or retracted ⟨a̠⟩, but this is not common. Acoustically, however, is a central vowel. It is more common to use plain for a central vowel and, if needed. Alternatively, Sinologists may use the letter ⟨ᴀ⟩, the IPA voted against officially adopting this symbol in 2011–2012. The Hamont dialect of Limburgish has been reported to contrast long open front, central and back unrounded vowels, the IPA prefers terms close and open for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, some prefer the terms high and low. Its vowel height is open, also known as low, which means the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth – that is, as low as possible in the mouth. Its vowel backness is central, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel and it is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded. Most languages have some form of an open vowel. Because the IPA uses ⟨a⟩ for both front and central unrounded open vowels, it is not always clear whether a language uses the former or the latter
22.
B
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B or b is the second letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet. It represents the voiced stop in many languages, including English. In some other languages, it is used to represent other bilabial consonants, Old English was originally written in runes, whose equivalent letter was beorc ⟨ᛒ⟩, meaning birch. Beorc dates to at least the 2nd-century Elder Futhark, which is now thought to have derived from the Old Italic alphabets ⟨
23.
Voiced bilabial stop
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The voiced bilabial stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨b⟩, the voiced bilabial stop occurs in English, and it is the sound denoted by the letter ⟨b⟩ in boy. Many Indian languages, such as Hindustani, have a two-way contrast between breathy voiced /bʱ/ and plain /b/, features of the voiced bilabial stop, Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely. Its place of articulation is bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips and its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation. It is a consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only. Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds
24.
C
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C is the third letter in the English alphabet and a letter of the alphabets of many other writing systems which inherited it from the Latin alphabet. It is also the letter of the ISO basic Latin alphabet. It is named cee in English, C comes from the same letter as G. The sign is possibly adapted from an Egyptian hieroglyph for a staff sling, another possibility is that it depicted a camel, the Semitic name for which was gamal. Powell, a specialist in the history of writing, states It is hard to imagine how gimel = camel can be derived from the picture of a camel. In the Etruscan language, plosive consonants had no contrastive voicing, already in the Western Greek alphabet, Gamma first took a form in Early Etruscan, then in Classical Etruscan. In Latin it eventually took the c form in Classical Latin, in the earliest Latin inscriptions, the letters c k q were used to represent the sounds /k/ and /ɡ/. Of these, q was used to represent /k/ or /ɡ/ before a vowel, k before a. During the 3rd century BC, a character was introduced for /ɡ/. The use of c replaced most usages of k and q, but during the course of the Old English period, /k/ before front vowels were palatalized, having changed by the tenth century to, though ⟨c⟩ was still used, as in circe, wrecca. On the continent, meanwhile, a similar phonetic change had also been going on, in Vulgar Latin, /k/ became palatalized to in Italy and Dalmatia, in France and the Iberian peninsula, it became. Yet for these new sounds ⟨c⟩ was still used before the letters ⟨e⟩, the letter thus represented two distinct values. Subsequently, the Latin phoneme /kʷ/ de-labialized to /k/ meaning that the various Romance languages had /k/ before front vowels, the convention of using both ⟨c⟩ and ⟨k⟩ was applied to the writing of English after the Norman Conquest, causing a considerable re-spelling of the Old English words. The Old English cw was also at length displaced by the French qu so that the Old English cwén and cwic became Middle English quen quik, the sound, to which Old English palatalized /k/ had advanced, also occurred in French, chiefly from Latin /k/ before a. In French it was represented by the digraph ⟨ch⟩, as in champ and this spelling was introduced into English, i-iii, child, chyld, riche, mychel, for the cild, rice, mycel, of the Old English version whence they were copied. Former generations also wrote sence for sense, hence, today the Romance languages and English have a common feature inherited from Vulgar Latin spelling conventions where ⟨c⟩ takes on either a hard or soft value depending on the following letter. In English orthography, ⟨c⟩ generally represents the value of /s/ before the letters ⟨e⟩, ⟨i⟩, and ⟨y⟩. However, there are a number of exceptions in English, soccer, the soft ⟨c⟩ may represent the /ʃ/ sound in the digraph ⟨ci⟩ when this precedes a vowel, as in the words delicious and appreciate
25.
Voiceless velar stop
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The voiceless velar stop or voiceless velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨k⟩, the sound is a very common sound cross-linguistically. Most languages have at least a plain, and some more than one variety. Most Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindi and Bengali, have a two-way contrast between aspirated and plain, only a few languages lack a voiceless velar stop, e. g. Tahitian. Features of the velar stop, Its manner of articulation is occlusive. Since the consonant is also oral, with no outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely. Its place of articulation is velar, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue at the soft palate and its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are separated, so it is always voiceless, in others the cords are lax. It is a consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only. It is a consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue. The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, hard and soft C Index of phonetics articles
26.
Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate
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The voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant affricate or voiceless domed postalveolar sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨t͡ʃ⟩, ⟨t͜ʃ⟩ or ⟨tʃ⟩ and it is familiar to English speakers as the ch sound in chip. Historically, this sound often derives from a former voiceless velar stop /k/, or a dental stop by way of palatalization. Some scholars use the symbol /t͡ʃ/ to transcribe the laminal variant of the voiceless retroflex affricate, in such cases, the voiceless palato-alveolar affricate is transcribed /t͡ʃʲ/. Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords, in some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless, in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds. It is a consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only. It is a consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue. The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds. Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Catalan, and Thai have a voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate /t͡ɕ/ and its place of articulation is postalveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge. Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords, in some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless, in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds. It is a consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only. It is a consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue. The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds
27.
D
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D is the fourth letter of the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. The Semitic letter Dāleth may have developed from the logogram for a fish or a door, there are many different Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this. In Semitic, Ancient Greek and Latin, the letter represented /d/, in the Etruscan alphabet the letter was superfluous, the equivalent Greek letter is Delta, Δ. The minuscule form of d consists of a loop and a vertical stroke. It developed by gradual variations on the majuscule form, in handwriting, it was common to start the arc to the left of the vertical stroke, resulting in a serif at the top of the arc. This serif was extended while the rest of the letter was reduced, resulting in an angled stroke, the angled stroke slowly developed into a vertical stroke. In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, and in the International Phonetic Alphabet, however, in the Vietnamese alphabet, it represents the sound /z/ in northern dialects or /j/ in southern dialects. In Fijian it represents a prenasalized stop /nd/, in some languages where voiceless unaspirated stops contrast with voiceless aspirated stops, ⟨d⟩ represents an unaspirated /t/, while ⟨t⟩ represents an aspirated /tʰ/. Examples of such languages include Icelandic, Scottish Gaelic, Navajo, the Roman numeral Ⅾ represents the number 500. D is the grade below C but above E in the grading system. The dictionary definition of D at Wiktionary The dictionary definition of d at Wiktionary
28.
E
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E is the fifth letter and the second vowel in the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used letter in many languages, including Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Latvian, Norwegian, Spanish, the Latin letter E differs little from its source, the Greek letter epsilon, Ε. In Semitic, the letter represented /h/, in Greek, hê became the letter epsilon, the various forms of the Old Italic script and the Latin alphabet followed this usage. Although Middle English spelling used ⟨e⟩ to represent long and short /e/, in other cases, the letter is silent, generally at the end of words. In the orthography of languages it represents either these or /ɛ/, or some variation of these sounds. Less commonly, as in French, German, or Saanich, ⟨e⟩ represents a mid-central vowel /ə/. Digraphs with ⟨e⟩ are common to indicate either diphthongs or monophthongs, such as ⟨ea⟩ or ⟨ee⟩ for /iː/ or /eɪ/ in English, ⟨ei⟩ for /aɪ/ in German, the International Phonetic Alphabet uses ⟨e⟩ for the close-mid front unrounded vowel or the mid front unrounded vowel. E is the most common letter in the English alphabet and several other European languages, in the story The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe, a character figures out a random character code by remembering that the most used letter in English is E. This makes it a hard and popular letter to use when writing lipograms, ernest Vincent Wrights Gadsby is considered a dreadful novel, and supposedly at least part of Wrights narrative issues were caused by language limitations imposed by the lack of E. Both Georges Perecs novel A Void and its English translation by Gilbert Adair omit e and are considered better works, ∃, existential quantifier in predicate logic. ∈, the symbol for set membership in set theory, ℯ, the base of the natural logarithm. 1 Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings. In British Sign Language, the e is signed by extending the index finger of the right hand touching the tip of index on the left hand. Media related to E at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of E at Wiktionary The dictionary definition of e at Wiktionary
29.
Close-mid front unrounded vowel
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The close-mid front unrounded vowel, or high-mid front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨e⟩, for the close-mid front rounded vowel that is usually transcribed with the symbol ⟨ɪ⟩ or ⟨i⟩, see near-close near-front unrounded vowel. If the usual symbol is ⟨e⟩, the vowel is listed here, the IPA prefers the terms close and open for vowels, and the name of this article follows this preference. However, a number of linguists prefer the terms high. Its vowel height is close-mid, also known as high-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a vowel and a mid vowel. Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant, note that rounded front vowels are often centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-front. It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded
30.
Open-mid front unrounded vowel
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The open-mid front unrounded vowel, or low-mid front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is a Latinized variant of the Greek lowercase epsilon, the IPA prefers terms close and open for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, a number of linguists, perhaps a majority, prefer the terms high. Its vowel height is open-mid, also known as low-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a vowel and a mid vowel. Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant, note that rounded front vowels are often centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-front. It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded
31.
F
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F is the sixth letter in the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. The origin of F is the Semitic letter vâv that represented a sound like /v/ or /w/, graphically it originally probably depicted either a hook or a club. Latin F, despite being pronounced differently, is descended from digamma. After sound changes eliminated /w/ from spoken Greek, digamma was used only as a numeral, however, the Greek alphabet also gave rise to other alphabets, and some of these retained letters descended from digamma. In the Etruscan alphabet, F probably represented /w/, as in Greek, when the Romans adopted the alphabet, they used V not only for the vowel /u/, but also for the corresponding semivowel /w/, leaving F available for /f/. And so out of the various vav variants in the Mediterranean world, the Roman alphabet forms the basis of the alphabet used today for English and many other languages. The lowercase f is not related to the visually similar long s, ſ, the use of the long s largely died out by the beginning of the 19th century, mostly to prevent confusion with f when using a short mid-bar. In the English writing system ⟨f⟩ is used to represent the sound /f/ and it is commonly doubled at the end of words. Exceptionally, it represents the voiced labiodental fricative /v/ in the word of. In the writing systems of languages, ⟨f⟩ commonly represents /f/. In French orthography, ⟨f⟩ is used to represent /f/ and it may also be silent at the end of words. In Spanish orthography, ⟨f⟩ is used to represent /f/, in the Hepburn romanization of Japanese, ⟨f⟩ is used to represent. This sound is considered to be an allophone of /h/. In Welsh orthography, ⟨f⟩ represents /v/ while ⟨ff⟩ represents /f/, in Slavic languages, ⟨f⟩ is used primarily in words of foreign origin. The International Phonetic Alphabet uses ⟨f⟩ to represent the labiodental fricative. Media related to F at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of F at Wiktionary The dictionary definition of f at Wiktionary
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Voiceless labiodental fricative
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The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in a number of spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨f⟩ and its place of articulation is labiodental, which means it is articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth. Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords, in some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless, in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds. It is a consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only. Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds
33.
G
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G is the 7th letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet. The letter G was introduced in the Old Latin period as a variant of C to distinguish voiced /ɡ/ from voiceless /k/, the recorded originator of G is freedman Spurius Carvilius Ruga, the first Roman to open a fee-paying school, who taught around 230 BC. At this time, K had fallen out of favor, and C, rugas positioning of G shows that alphabetic order related to the letters values as Greek numerals was a concern even in the 3rd century BC. Hempl proposes that there never was such a space in the alphabet, zeta took shapes like ⊏ in some of the Old Italic scripts, the development of the monumental form G from this shape would be exactly parallel to the development of C from gamma. He suggests that the pronunciation /k/ > /ɡ/ was due to contamination from the also similar-looking K, because of French influence, English orthography shares this feature. The modern lowercase g has two variants, the single-story and the double-story. The double-story form had developed similarly, except that some ornate forms then extended the tail back to the right, the initial extension to the left was absorbed into the upper closed bowl. The double-story version became popular when printing switched to Roman type because the tail was effectively shorter, in the double-story version, a small top stroke in the upper-right, often terminating in an orb shape, is called an ear. Generally, the two forms are complementary, but occasionally the difference has been exploited to provide contrast. Most, if not all, in English, the letter appears either alone or in some digraphs. In words of Romance origin, ⟨g⟩ is mainly soft before ⟨e⟩, ⟨i⟩, or ⟨y⟩, and hard otherwise. There are many English words of non-Romance origin where ⟨g⟩ is hard though followed by ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, the double consonant ⟨gg⟩ has the value /ɡ/ as in nugget, with very few exceptions, /gd͡ʒ/ in suggest and /d͡ʒ/ in exaggerate and veggies. The digraph ⟨dg⟩ has the value /d͡ʒ/, as in badger, non-digraph ⟨dg⟩ can also occur, in compounds like floodgate and headgear. Non-trigraph ⟨ngh⟩ also occurs, in compounds like stronghold and dunghill, Most Romance languages and some Nordic languages also have two main pronunciations for ⟨g⟩, hard and soft. While the soft value of ⟨g⟩ varies in different Romance languages, in all except Romanian and Italian, in Italian and Romanian, ⟨gh⟩ is used to represent /ɡ/ before front vowels where ⟨g⟩ would otherwise represent a soft value. In Italian and French, ⟨gn⟩ is used to represent the palatal nasal /ɲ/, in Italian, the trigraph ⟨gli⟩, when appearing before a vowel or as the article and pronoun gli, represents the palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/. Other languages typically use ⟨g⟩ to represent /ɡ/ regardless of position, amongst European languages Czech, Dutch and Finnish are an exception as they do not have /ɡ/ in their native words. Nevertheless, word-finally it is always voiceless in all dialects, including the standard Dutch of Belgium, on the other hand, some dialects, may have a phonemic /ɡ/. Faroese uses ⟨g⟩ to represent /dʒ/, in addition to /ɡ/, in Maori, ⟨g⟩ is used in the digraph ⟨ng⟩ which represents the velar nasal /ŋ/ and is pronounced like the ⟨ng⟩ in singer
34.
Voiced velar stop
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The voiced velar stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɡ⟩, strictly, the IPA symbol is the so-called single-story G, but the double-story G is considered an acceptable alternative. Features of the velar stop, Its manner of articulation is occlusive. Since the consonant is also oral, with no outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely. Its place of articulation is velar, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue at the soft palate and its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation. It is a consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only. It is a consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue. The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, absent stop is an areal feature. Missing, on the hand, is widely scattered around the world. It seems that is more difficult to articulate than the other basic stops. This could have two effects, and might become confused, and the distinction is lost, or perhaps a never develops when a language first starts making voicing distinctions. With uvulars, where there is less space between the glottis and tongue for airflow, the imbalance is more extreme, Voiced is much rarer than voiceless. Many Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindustani, have a two-way contrast between aspirated and plain
35.
Voiced palato-alveolar affricate
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The voiced palato-alveolar sibilant affricate, voiced post-alveolar affricate or voiced domed postalveolar sibilant affricate, is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨d͡ʒ⟩, or in broad transcription ⟨ɟ⟩, alternatives commonly used in linguistic works, particularly in older or American literature, are ⟨ǰ⟩, ⟨ǧ⟩, ⟨ǯ⟩, and ⟨dž⟩. It is familiar to English speakers as the pronunciation of ⟨j⟩ in jump, some scholars use the symbol /d͡ʒ/ to transcribe the laminal variant of the voiced retroflex affricate. In such cases, the voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant is transcribed /d͡ʒʲ/ and its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation. It is a consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only. It is a consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue. The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm and its place of articulation is postalveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge. Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation and it is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only. It is a consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue. The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds
36.
H
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H is the eighth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet. The original Semitic letter Heth most likely represented the voiceless pharyngeal fricative, the form of the letter probably stood for a fence or posts. The Greek eta Η in Archaic Greek alphabets still represented /h/, in this context, the letter eta is also known as heta to underline this fact. Thus, in the Old Italic alphabets, the letter heta of the Euboean alphabet was adopted with its sound value /h/. For most English speakers, the name for the letter is pronounced as /ˈeɪtʃ/, the pronunciation /ˈheɪtʃ/ and the associated spelling haitch is often considered to be h-adding and is considered nonstandard in England. It is, however, a feature of Hiberno-English and other varieties of English, such as those of Malaysia, India, Newfoundland, in Northern Ireland, it is a shibboleth as Protestant schools teach aitch and Catholics haitch. In the Republic of Ireland, the h is generally pronounced as haitch. The perceived name of the letter affects the choice of indefinite article before initialisms beginning with H, the pronunciation /ˈheɪtʃ/ may be a hypercorrection formed by analogy with the names of the other letters of the alphabet, most of which include the sound they represent. Despite this increasing number, pronunciation without the /h/ sound is considered to be standard in England. Authorities disagree about the history of the letters name, the Oxford English Dictionary says the original name of the letter was in Latin, this became in Vulgar Latin, passed into English via Old French, and by Middle English was pronounced. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language derives it from French hache from Latin haca or hic, anatoly Liberman suggests a conflation of two obsolete orderings of the alphabet, one with H immediately followed by K and the other without any K, reciting the formers. H, K, L. as when reinterpreted for the latter, H, L. would imply a pronunciation for H. In English, ⟨h⟩ occurs as a single-letter grapheme and in digraphs, such as ⟨ch⟩ /tʃ/, /ʃ/, /k/, or /x/). The letter is silent in a syllable rime, as in ah, ohm, dahlia, cheetah, pooh-poohed, as well as in other words such as hour, honest, herb. Initial /h/ is often not pronounced in the form of some function words including had, has, have, he, her, him, his. It was formerly common for an rather than a to be used as the article before a word beginning with /h/ in an unstressed syllable, as in an historian. In the German language, the name of the letter is pronounced /haː/, following a vowel, it often silently indicates that the vowel is long, In the word erhöhen, only the first ⟨h⟩ represents /h/. In 1901, a spelling reform eliminated the silent ⟨h⟩ in nearly all instances of ⟨th⟩ in native German words such as thun or Thür
37.
I
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I is the ninth letter and the third vowel in the ISO basic Latin alphabet. This letter could also be used to represent /i/, the close front unrounded vowel, the Greeks adopted a form of this Phoenician yodh as their letter iota to represent /i/, the same as in the Old Italic alphabet. In Latin, it was used to represent /j/ and this use persists in the languages that descended from Latin. The modern letter j originated as a variation of i, the dot over the lowercase i is sometimes called a tittle. In the Turkish alphabet, dotted and dotless I are considered separate letters, representing a front and back vowel, respectively, and both have uppercase and lowercase forms. In Modern English spelling, ⟨i⟩ represents several different sounds, either the diphthong /aɪ/ as in kite, the diphthong /aɪ/ developed from Middle English /iː/ through a series of vowel shifts. Because the diphthong /aɪ/ developed from a Middle English long vowel, the letter, ⟨i⟩, is the fifth most common letter in the English language. The English first-person singular nominative pronoun is I, pronounced /aɪ/, Chambers notes, however, that the capitalized form didn’t become established in the south of England “until the 1700s. Capitalizing the pronoun, Chambers explains, made it distinct, thus “avoiding misreading handwritten manuscripts. ”In many languages orthographies, ⟨i⟩ is used to represent the sound /i/ or, more rarely. The Roman numeral Ⅰ represents the number 1, in mathematics, the lowercase i represents the unit imaginary number. In some sans serif typefaces, the uppercase letter I, I may be difficult to distinguish from the lowercase letter L, l, the vertical bar character |, or the digit one 1. In serifed typefaces, the form of the letter has both a baseline and a cap-height serif, while the lowercase L has generally a hooked ascender. The uppercase I does not have a dot while the lowercase i has one in most Latin-derived alphabets, however, some schemes, such as the Turkish alphabet, have two kinds of I, dotted and dotless. The uppercase I has two kinds of shapes, with serifs and without serifs, usually these are considered equivalent, but they are distinguished in some extended Latin alphabet systems, such as the 1978 version of the African reference alphabet. In that system, the former is the counterpart of ɪ
