The Central-Northern Latian dialect (''Laziale centro-settentrionale'') is an Italian dialect belonging to the Central Italian dialects, of which it represents the southern offshoot.

Territory

It is spoken in the

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 an ...

(Latium) region, and in particular in the northern areas of the

Province of Frosinone The province of Frosinone () is a province in the Lazio region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Frosinone. It has an area of and a total population of 493,605 (2016). The province contains 91 ''comuni'' (: ''comune''), listed in the ...

(whose variants are often improperly defined as the Ciociaro dialect or more anciently Campanino), in the central-northern areas of the Province of Latina and in most of the Metropolitan city of Rome with the exception, however, of the city of Rome, where the

Romanesco dialect Romanesco () is one of the Central Italian dialects spoken in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, especially in the core city. It is linguistically close to Tuscan and Standard Italian, with some notable differences from these two. Rich in v ...

is widespread and which differs widely from the rest of the Latian dialects.

Features

Phonetics

The central-northern Lazio is characterized, like the other Central Italian dialects and the

Tuscan dialect Tuscan ( ; ) is a set of Italo-Dalmatian varieties of Romance spoken in Tuscany, Corsica, and Sardinia. Standard Italian is based on Tuscan, specifically on its Florentine dialect, and it became the language of culture throughout Italy be ...

(but unlike the neighboring Southern Latian dialect and most of the other Italian dialects), by the presence of seven vowels, also typical of standard Italian.

The Judeo-Roman dialect

The Judaic-Roman dialect can be inserted within the Central-Northern Latian dialect, having diverged considerably from the Romanesco dialect after the establishment of the

ghetto A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other ...

in 1555 and therefore not undergoing the influence of the Tuscan as strongly as the dialect of the capital.On this dialect, see: Migliau Bice, Il dialetto giudaico-romanesco, in: Migliau Bice e Procaccia Micaela, ''Lazio: Itinerari ebraici. I luoghi, la storia, l’arte'', Marsilio, Venezia, 1997 The dialect is now used for literary and theatrical works.

References

Further bibliography