Italian Alphabet

Italian orthography (the conventions used in writing Italian) uses the Latin alphabet to write the Italian language. This article focuses on the writing of Standard Italian, based historically on the Florentine variety of Tuscan.

Written Italian is very regular and almost completely phonemic—having an almost one-to-one correspondence between letters (or sequences of letters) and sounds (or sequences of sounds). The main exceptions are that stress placement and vowel quality (for and ) are not notated, and may be voiced or not, and may represent vowels or semivowels, and a silent is used in a very few cases other than the digraphs and (used for the hard and sounds before and ).

Alphabet

The base alphabet consists of 21 letters: five vowels (A, E, I, O, U) and 16 consonants. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not part of the proper alphabet, but appear in words of ancient Greek origin (e.g. '' Xilofono''), loanwords (e.g. "weekend"), foreign names (e.g. John), scientific terms (e.g. km) and in a handful of native words—such as the names '' Kalsa'', '' Jesolo'', ''Bettino Craxi'', and '' Cybo'', which all derive from regional languages. In addition, grave and acute accents may modify vowel letters; circumflex accent is much rarer and is found only in older texts.

Double consonants represent true geminates and are pronounced as such: , "year", pronounced (cf. English ''ten nails''). The short–long length contrast is phonemic, e.g. , "upright", vs. , "rite, ritual", , "cart, wagon", vs. , "dear, expensive".

Vowels

The Italian alphabet has five vowel letters, . Of those, only represents one sound value, while all others have two. In addition, and indicate a different pronunciation of a preceding or (see below).

In stressed syllables, represents both open and close . Similarly, represents both open and close (see Italian phonology for further details on those sounds). There is typically no orthographic distinction between the open and close sounds represented, although accent marks are used in certain instances (see below). There are some minimal pairs, called heteronyms, where the same spelling is used for distinct words with distinct vowel sounds. In unstressed syllables, only the close variants occur.

In addition to representing the vowels and , and also typically represent the semivowels and , when unstressed and occurring before another vowel. Many exceptions exist (e.g. , , , , , , , , , , , ). An may indicate that a preceding or is "soft" ().

C and G

The letters and represent the plosives and before and before the vowels , , . They represent the affricates and when they precede a front vowel ( or ).

The letter can also function within digraphs (two letters representing one sound) and to indicate "soft" (affricate) or before another vowel. In these instances, the vowel following the digraph is stressed, and represents no vowel sound: (), (). An item such as ''CIA'' " CIA", pronounced with stressed, contains no digraph.

For words of more than one syllable, stress position must be known in order to distinguish between digraph or containing no actual phonological vowel and sequences of affricate and stressed . For example, the words , "shirt", and , "pharmacy", share the spelling , but contrast in that only the first is stressed in , thus represents with no sound (likewise, ''grigio'' ends in and the names and contain only two actual vowels: , ). In is stressed, so that is not a digraph, but represents two of the three constituents of .

When the "hard" (plosive) pronunciation or occurs before a front vowel or , digraphs and are used, so that represents or and represents or . The same principle applies to : and represent or and or .

In the evolution from Latin to Italian, the postalveolar affricates and were contextual variants of the velar consonants and . They eventually came to be full phonemes, and orthographic adjustments were introduced to distinguish them. The phonemicity of the affricates can be demonstrated with minimal pairs:

The trigraphs and are used to indicate geminate and , when they occur before or ; e.g. "eyes", "to dress up". The double letters and before or and and before other vowels represent the geminated affricates and , e. g. , "hedgehog", , "worse".

joins with to form a digraph representing palatal before (before other vowels, the trigraph is used), and with to represent with any vowel following. Between vowels these are pronounced phonetically long, as in , "garlic", , "each". By way of exception, before represents in some words derived from Greek, such as , "wisteria", from learned Latin, such as , "negligent", and in a few adaptations from other languages such as , partially italianised from French . before vowels other than represents straightforward .

The digraph is used before and to represent ; before other vowels, is used for . Otherwise, represents , the of which follows the normal orthographic rules explained above.

Intervocalic , , and are always geminated and no orthographic distinction is made to indicate this.

Some words are spelled with , , and . Historically, the letters in these combinations represented a diphthong, but in modern pronunciation these combinations are indistinguishable from , , and . Notable examples: "blind" (homophonous with , "Czech"), "sky" (homophonous with , "I conceal"), "science".

The plurals of words ending in -, - are written with -, - if preceded by a vowel (, "skirt" → , "skirts", , "suitcase" → , "suitcases") or with -, - if preceded by a consonant (, "province" → , "provinces"). This rule has been established since the 1950s; prior to that, etymological spellings such as and were in use.

The letter combination is pronounced the same as and occurs when the ending (1st person plural present indicative and 1st person plural present subjunctive) or (2nd person plural present subjunctive) is attached to a stem ending in : , "to dream" → , "we dream".

C and Q

Normally is represented by , but it is represented by in some words, such as , , , , , and . These words all contain a sequence derived from an original which was subsequently diphthongised. The sequence is always spelled (e.g. ), with exceptions being spelled in the words , its derivation , and and , two alternative forms of or .

S and Z

and are ambiguous to voicing.

represents a dental sibilant consonant, either or . However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word and, even with such words, there are very few minimal pairs.
* The voiceless occurs:
** At the start of a word before a vowel (e.g. ) or a voiceless consonant (e.g. )
** After any consonant (e.g. )
** In the middle of a word before a voiceless consonant (e.g. )
** At the start of the second part of a compound word (e.g. , , , , , ). These words are formed by adding a prefix to a word beginning with
* The voiced occurs before voiced consonants (e.g. ).
* It can be either voiceless or voiced ( or ) between vowels; in standard Tuscany-based pronunciation some words are pronounced with between vowels (e.g. , , , , , , , , ), but most words are pronounced with (e.g. , , , , ); in Northern Italy (and also increasingly in Tuscany) between vowels is always pronounced with whereas in Southern Italy between vowels is always pronounced .

always represents voiceless : , , , etc.

represents a dental affricate consonant; either ( ) or ( ), depending on context, although there are few minimal pairs.
* It is normally voiceless :
** At the start of a word in which the second syllable starts with a voiceless consonant ( , , )
*** Exceptions (because they are of Greek origin): , , , , ,
** When followed by an which is followed, in turn, by another vowel (e.g. , , )
*** Exceptions: , all words derived from words obeying other rules (e.g. , which is derived from )
** After the letter (e.g. )
*** Exceptions: and
** In the suffixes ''-anza'', ''-enza'' and ''-onzolo'' (e.g. , , )
* It is normally voiced :
** At the start of a word in which the second syllable starts with a voiced consonant or the letter itself (e.g. , )
*** Exceptions: ,
** At the start of a word when followed by two vowels (e.g. )
*** Exceptions: and its derived terms (see above)
** If it is single (not doubled) and between two single vowels (e.g. )
*** Exceptions: (from the German pronunciation of )

Between vowels and/or semivowels ( and ), is pronounced as if doubled ( or , e.g. , ). Generally, intervocalic ''z'' is written doubled, but it is written single in most words where it precedes followed by any vowel and in some learned words.

may represent either a voiceless alveolar affricate or its voiced counterpart : voiceless in e.g. , , , , voiced in , , , , , . Most words are consistently pronounced with or throughout Italy in the standard language (e.g. "magpie", "mug"), but a few words, such as , "effervesce, sting", exist in both voiced and voiceless forms, differing by register or by geographic area, while others have different meanings depending on whether they are pronounced in voiced or voiceless form (e.g. : (race, breed) or (ray, skate)). The verbal ending ''-izzare'' from Greek -ίζειν is always pronounced (e.g. ), maintained in both inflected forms and derivations: "I organise", "organisation". Like above, however, not all verbs ending in -''izzare'' continue suffixed Greek -ίζειν, having instead -''izz''- as part of the verb stem. , for example, of Latin origin reconstructed as *INDIRECTIARE, has in all forms containing the root ''indirizz''-.

Silent H

In addition to being used to indicate a hard or before front vowels (see above), is used to distinguish , , , ( present indicative of , "to have") from ("or"), ("to the", m. pl.), ("to"), ("year"); since is always silent, there is no difference in the pronunciation of such words. The letter is also used in some interjections, where it always comes immediately after the first vowel in the word (e.g. , , , ). In filler words and both ⟨h⟩ and the preceding vowel are silent. ⟨h⟩ is used in some loanwords, by far the most common of which is , but also ''handicap, habitat, hardware, hall'' ("lobby, foyer"), ''hamburger, horror, hobby.'' Silent is also found in some Italian toponyms: Chorio, Dho, Hano, Mathi, Noha, Proh, Rho, Roghudi, Santhià, Tharros, Thiene, Thiesi, Thurio, Vho; and surnames: ''Dahò'', ''Dehò'', ''De Bartholomaeis'', ''De Thomasis'', ''Matthey'', ''Rahò'', ''Rhodio'', ''Tha'', ''Thei'', ''Theodoli'', ''Thieghi'', ''Thiella'', ''Thiglia'', ''Tholosano'', ''Thomatis'', ''Thorel'', ''Thovez''.

J, K, W, X and Y

The letter (, "long I", or ) is not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet; however, it is used in some Latin words, in proper nouns (such as Jesi, Letojanni, Juventus, etc.), in words borrowed from foreign languages (most common: ''jeans'', but also ''jazz'', ''jet'', ''jeep'', ''banjo''), and in an archaic spelling of Italian.

Until the 19th century, was used in Italian instead of in word-initial rising diphthongs, as a replacement for final -, and between vowels (as in ); this rule was quite strict in official writing.

The letter represents in Latin and Italian and dialect words such as Romanesco dialect ''ajo'' ("garlic"; cf. Italian ); it represents in borrowings from English (including ''judo'', borrowed from Japanese via English); and in borrowings from French (''julienne, bijou'').

The letters (), ( or , "double V"), () and ( or , "Greek I") are not part of the standard Italian alphabet and are used only in unassimilated or partially assimilated loanwords.

The letter is used in ''karma'', ''kayak'', ''kiwi'', ''kamikaze'', etc.; it is always pronounced . It is often used informally among young people as a replacement for , paralleling the use of in English (for example, ''ke'' instead of ''che'').

The letter is used in ''web'', ''whisky'', ''water'', "water closet / toilet", ''western'', "Western movie", ''watt'', etc; it is alternately pronounced (in ''web'', ''whisky'', ''western'') or (in ''water'', ''watt''). A capital is used as an abbreviation of or ("long live"). Although is named or , in initialisms such as it is normally read simply as .

The letter represents either , as in , , , or when it is preceded by and followed by a vowel, e.g. . In most words, it may be replaced with or (with different pronunciation: /, /) or, rarely, by (with the same pronunciation: / clacson). In some other languages of Italy, it represents ( Venetian), ( Sicilian), or ( Sardinian and Ligurian).

The letter is used in ''yoga'', ''yogurt'', ''yacht'', ''Uruguay'', etc. This letter is sometimes replaced by in some words such as ''yoga/ioga'' and ''yogurt/iogurt'', but the spellings with are much more common.

Diacritics

The acute accent (´) may be used on and to represent stressed close-mid vowels. This use of accents is generally mandatory only to indicate stress on a word-final vowel; elsewhere, accents are generally found only in dictionaries. Since final is hardly ever close-mid, is very rarely encountered in written Italian (e.g. , "subway", from the original French pronunciation of with a final-stressed ).

The grave accent (`) is found on , , , , . It may be used on and when they represent open-mid vowels. The accents may also be used to differentiate minimal pairs within Italian (for example , "peach", vs. , "fishing"), but in practice this is limited to didactic texts. In the case of final and , both diacritics are encountered. By far the most common option is the grave accent, and , although this may be due to the rarity of the acute accent to represent stress; the alternative of employing the acute, and , is in practice limited to erudite texts, but can be justified as both vowels are high (as in Catalan). However, since there are no corresponding low (or lax) vowels to contrast with in Italian, both choices are equally acceptable.

The circumflex accent (ˆ) can be used to mark the contraction of two unstressed vowels ending a word, normally pronounced , so that the plural of , "study, office", may be written , or . The form with circumflex is found mainly in older texts, although it may still appear in contexts where ambiguity might arise from homography. For example, it can be used to differentiate words such as ("genes", plural of ) and ("geniuses", plural of ) or ("princes", plural of ) and ("principles", plural of ). In general, current usage usually prefers a single instead of a double or an with circumflex.

Monosyllabic words generally lack an accent (e.g. , ). The accent is written, however, if there is an or a preceding another vowel (, ). This applies even if the is "silent", i.e. part of the digraphs or representing and (, ). It does not apply, however, if the word begins with (, ). Many monosyllabic words are spelled with an accent in order to avoid ambiguity with other words (e.g. , versus , ). This is known as and also occurs in other Romance languages (e.g. the Spanish ).

Sample text

"Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita


mi ritrovai per una selva oscura


ché la diritta via era smarrita."

Lines 1–3 of Canto 1 of the Inferno, Part 1 of the '' Divina Commedia'' by Dante Alighieri, a highly influential poem. Translation (Longfellow): "Midway upon the journey of our life \ I found myself in a dark wood \ for the straight way was lost."

See also

* Gian Giorgio Trissino, humanist who proposed an orthography in 1524. Some of his proposals were taken.
* Claudio Tolomei, humanist who proposed an orthography in 1525

References

Bibliography

*

External links

* Danesi, Marcel (1996)
''Italian the Easy way''

{{Language orthographies

Italian language
Indo-European Latin-script orthographies