Sounds of Italy
a glimpse into the Italian language
Spellings are weird.
How come the name Niamh (Irish) is pronounced Neeve? In Welsh, cwm is coom. Why is the surname Cholmondley pronounced Chumley? Why is Mainwaring pronounced Mannering? How did Magdalen College end up being called Maudlin?
Many years ago, my mother, father, sister and I went to Italy by train. It took three long, hot, sweaty days. On the way, a French couple joined us. My parents spoke Italian but not French; the couple spoke French but not Italian. Even so, they communicated well enough.
I’ve been thinking recently about the similarities and differences between French and Italian. Both are heavily influenced by Latin, a legacy of the Romans.
A lot of the words and phrases in both languages sound very similar, but French spellings would make no sense to my Mum and Dad.
Italian is very straightforward and logical. You pronounce every letter, even the doubles. Seeing a French word like fauteuil (armchair) would send the average Italian person’s brain into a spin.
French spelling includes lots of what might seem redundant letters, not spoken aloud. An example is grenouille (frog) which spoken is grun-wee.
So perhaps it was the spoken sounds which helped my parents communicate with the French couple, words or phrases they might have used, such as buon giorno which is very similar to bonjour; mangiare and manger (eat); and fenêtre/finestra (window).
So how does Italian spelling work?
‘Ch’ is hard k (think Chianti)
‘Gli’ is lyi with a bit of a roll to the tongue. An example is figlio (son) — fee-lyi-oh.
‘Gn’ is nyuh so gnocchi is nyuh-okee.
Letters at the ends of words are always pronounced. Think of sole in O sole mio.
Every letter is spoken so doubles are easily heard. If you’ve ordered pasta arrabiata (angry pasta!) you would say ar-rab-yata.
There is no j in Italian — although I have noticed on ‘Montalbano’ that they’ve started using j but pronouncing it as y — so Jacomo becomes Yacomo. The proper spelling of that sound though begins with ‘gi’, as in La Giaconda.
There’s no ‘th’. My parents struggled with words like Thursday, which came out as Tursday. But the ‘ch’ sound is there. It’s made with a c — so cinema is pronounced chinema.
‘Sc’ is the sound for sh. An old friend, Shirley, was baffled at first when my Mum spelled her name as Scerli.
However I try and describe these sounds, they’re never as good as hearing the real thing. So my advice is save up, take a trip to Italy and immerse yourself in that flowing, musical, happy language.
