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Tuscan Gorgia
The Tuscan gorgia ( , ; 'Tuscan throat') is a phonetic phenomenon governed by a complex of allophonic rules characteristic of the Tuscan dialects, in Tuscany, Italy, especially the central ones, with Florence traditionally viewed as the center. Description The ''gorgia'' affects the voiceless stops and , which are pronounced as fricative consonants in post-vocalic position (when not blocked by the competing phenomenon of syntactic gemination): * → * → * → An example: the word ('to identify') is pronounced by a Tuscan speaker as , not as , as standard Italian phonology would require. The rule is sensitive to pause, but not word boundary, so that ('the house') is realized as , while the two phonemes of 'the overalls' are interdental in , and is pronounced so 'the pipe (for smoking)' emerges as . (In some areas the voiced counterparts can also appear as fricative approximants , especially in fast or unguarded speech. This, however, appears more widesp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. The field of phonetics is traditionally divided into three sub-disciplines on questions involved such as how humans plan and execute movements to produce speech (articulatory phonetics), how various movements affect the properties of the resulting sound (acoustic phonetics) or how humans convert sound waves to linguistic information (auditory phonetics). Traditionally, the minimal linguistic unit of phonetics is the phone (phonetics), phone—a speech sound in a language which differs from the phonological unit of phoneme; the phoneme is an abstract categorization of phones and it is also defined as the smallest unit that discerns meaning between sounds in any given language. Phonetics deals with two aspects of human speech: production ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucca
Città di Lucca ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its Province of Lucca, province has a population of 383,957. Lucca is known as an Italian "Città d'arte" (City of Art) from its intact Renaissance-era Walls of Lucca, city walls and its very well preserved historic center, where, among other buildings and monuments, are located the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, which has its origins in the second half of the 1st century A.D., the Guinigi Tower, a tower that dates from the 14th century and the Cathedral of San Martino. The city is the birthplace of numerous world-class composers, including Giacomo Puccini, Alfredo Catalani, and Luigi Boccherini. Toponymy To the Ancient Rome, Ancient Romans, Lucca was known as ''Luca''. From more recent and concrete toponymic studies, the name Lucca has references that lead to "sacred grove" (Latin: ''lucus''), " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phonemic
A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages contain phonemes (or the spatial-gestural equivalent in sign languages), and all spoken languages include both consonant and vowel phonemes; phonemes are primarily studied under the branch of linguistics known as phonology. Examples and notation The English words ''cell'' and ''set'' have the exact same sequence of sounds, except for being different in their final consonant sounds: thus, versus in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), a writing system that can be used to represent phonemes. Since and alone distinguish certain words from others, they are each examples of phonemes of the English language. Specifically they are consonant phonemes, along with , while is a vowel phoneme. The spelling of English does not strictly conform ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Etruscan Language
Etruscan ( ) was the language of the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria, in Etruria Padana and Etruria Campana in what is now Italy. Etruscan influenced Latin but was eventually superseded by it. Around 13,000 Etruscan epigraphy, inscriptions have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length; some bilingual inscriptions with texts also in Latin, Ancient Greek, Greek, or Phoenician language, Phoenician; and a few dozen purported loanwords. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study. Nowadays, it is generally agreed to be in the Tyrsenian language family, but before it gained currency as one of the Tyrsenian languages, it was commonly treated as an Language isolate, isolate, although there were also a number of other less well-known hypotheses. The consensus among linguists and Etruscologists is that Etruscan was a Pre-Indo-European languages, Pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corsica
Corsica ( , , ; ; ) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the Regions of France, 18 regions of France. It is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of the Metropolitan France#Hexagon, French mainland, west of the Italian Peninsula and immediately north of the Italian island of Sardinia, the nearest land mass. A single chain of mountains makes up two-thirds of the island. , it had a population of 355,528. The island is a Single territorial collectivity, territorial collectivity of France, and is expected to achieve "a form of autonomy" in the near future. The regional capital is Ajaccio. Although the region is divided into two administrative Departments of France, departments, Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud, their respective regional and departmental Territorial collectivity, territorial collectivities were merged on 1 January 2018 to form the single territorial collectivity of Corsica. Corsican aut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Italian Dialects
The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy: Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. In central Italy they are spoken in the northern Marches (Gallo-Italic of the Marches); in southern Italy in some language islands in Basilicata ( Gallo-Italic of Basilicata) and Sicily (Gallo-Italic of Sicily).Fiorenzo Toso, ''Le minoranze linguistiche in Italia'', Il Mulino, Bologna 2008, p. 137. Although most publications define Venetian as part of the Italo-Dalmatian branch, both Ethnologue and Glottolog group it into the Gallo-Italic languages. The languages are spoken also in the departement of Alpes-Maritimes in France and in Ticino and southern Grisons, both in Switzerland, and the microstates of Monaco and San Marino. They are still spoken to some extent by the Italian diaspora in countries with Italian immigrant communities. Having a Celtic substratum and a German ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralised authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lazio
Lazio ( , ; ) or Latium ( , ; from Latium, the original Latin name, ) is one of the 20 Regions of Italy, administrative regions of Italy. Situated in the Central Italy, central peninsular section of the country, it has 5,714,882 inhabitants and a GDP of more than €212 billion per year, making it the country's second most populated region and second largest regional economy after Lombardy. The capital of Lazio is Rome, which is the capital city of Italy. Lazio was the home of the Etruscan civilization, then stood at the center of the Roman Republic, of the Roman Empire, of the Papal States, of the Kingdom of Italy and of the Italian Republic. Lazio boasts a rich cultural heritage. Great artists and historical figures lived and worked in Rome, particularly during the Italian Renaissance period. In remote antiquity, Lazio (''Latium'') included only a limited part of the current region, between the lower course of the Tiber, the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Monti Sabini and the Pontine M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Quirico D'Orcia
San Quirico d'Orcia is a ''comune'' (municipality) of about 2,500 inhabitants in the Province of Siena in the Italian region Tuscany, located about southeast of Florence and about southeast of Siena inside the Valdorcia landscape. It is named in honor of Saint Quiricus. Located on the Via Francigena, San Quirico d'Orcia borders the municipalities of Castiglione d'Orcia, Montalcino and Pienza. Main sights The ''frazione'' of Vignoni houses a castle, a residence of the Salimbeni family in the 12th century. It includes a top-less tower and a Romanesque church, once housing a crufix by Giambologna, now in the Museum of Montalcino. Annexed is also the (rebuilt) 15th century ''Palazzo degli Amerighi'', where a plot was set against the Spanish who menaced Siena in 1558–59. San Quirico is home to the following churches: * Collegiate church of ''San Quirico''. Once a rural ''pieve'' (pleban church) from the 8th century, with a baptismal font, it was rebuilt into the current str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siena
Siena ( , ; traditionally spelled Sienna in English; ) is a city in Tuscany, in central Italy, and the capital of the province of Siena. It is the twelfth most populated city in the region by number of inhabitants, with a population of 52,991 as of 2025. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking centre until the 13th and 14th centuries. Siena is also home to the List of oldest banks in continuous operation, oldest bank in the world, the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Monte dei Paschi, which has been operating continuously since . Several significant Mediaeval and Renaissance painters were born and worked in Siena, among them Duccio di Buoninsegna, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Simone Martini and Stefano di Giovanni, Sassetta, and influenced the course of Italian and European art. The University of Siena, originally called ''Studium Senese'', was founded in 1240, making it one of the List of oldest universities in continuous oper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apennine Mountains
The Apennines or Apennine Mountains ( ; or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; or – a singular with plural meaning; )Latin ''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which would be segmented ''Apenn-inus'', often used with nouns such as ("mountain") or Greek (), but ''Apenninus'' is just as often used alone as a noun. The ancient Greeks and Romans typically but not always used "mountain" in the singular to mean one or a range; thus, "the Apennine mountain" refers to the entire chain and is translated "the Apennine mountains". The ending can vary also by gender depending on the noun modified. The Italian singular refers to one of the constituent chains rather than to a single mountain, and the Italian plural refers to multiple chains rather than to multiple mountains. are a mountain range consisting of parallel smaller chains extending the length of peninsular Italy. In the northwest they join the Ligurian Alps at Altare. In the southwest they end at Reggio di Cal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a particular point in time) and diachronically (as a language changes over time). Lenition can involve such changes as voicing a voiceless consonant, causing a consonant to relax occlusion, to lose its place of articulation (a phenomenon called '' debuccalization'', which turns a consonant into a glottal consonant like or ), or even causing a consonant to disappear entirely. An example of synchronic lenition is found in most varieties of American English, in the form of tapping: the of a word like ''wait'' is pronounced as the more sonorous in the related form ''waiting'' . Some varieties of Spanish show debuccalization of to at the end of a syllable, so that a word like "we are" is pronounced . An example of diachronic l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
