(b) Dialects of the Neapolitan Mainland.—The Calabrian (by which is to be understood more particularly the vernacular group of the two Further Calabrias) may be fairly considered as a continuation of the Sicilian type, as is seen from the following examples:—cori, cuore; petra; fímmina, femina; vuce, voce; unure, onore; figghiu, figlio; spadde, spalle; trizza, treccia. Both Sicilian and Calabrian is the reducing of rl to rr (Sicil. parrari, Cal. parrare, parlare, &c.). The final vowel -e is reduced to -i, but is preserved in the more southern part, as is seen from the above examples. Even the ḣ for š = fj, as in ḣuri (Sicil. šuri, fiore), which is characteristic in Calabrian, has its forerunners in the island (see Arch. ii. 456). And, in the same way, though the dominant varieties of Calabria seem to cling to the mb (it sometimes happens that mm takes the form of mb: imbiscare = Sicil. ’mmiscari ’immischiare’, &c.) and nd, as opposed to the mm, nn, of the whole of Southern Italy and Sicily, we must remember, firstly, that certain other varieties have, e.g. granne, Ital. grande, and chiummu, Ital. piombo; and secondly, that even in Sicily (at Milazzo, Barcelona, and as far as Messina) districts are to be found in which nd is used. Along the coast of the extreme south of Italy, when once we have passed the interruptions caused by the Basilisco type (so called from the Basilicata), the Sicilian vocalism again presents itself in the Otrantine, especially in the seaboard of Capo di Leuca. In the Lecce variety of the Otrantine the vocalism which has just been described as Sicilian also keeps its ground in the main (cf. Morosi, Arch. iv.): sira, sera; leítu, oliveto; pilu; ura, ora; dulure. Nay more, the Sicilian phenomenon of lj into ghj (figghiu, figlio, &c.) is well marked in Terra d’ Otranto and also in Terra di Bari, and even extends through the Capitanata and the Basilicata (cf. D’ Ovidio, Arch. iv. 159-160). As strongly marked in the Terra d’Otranto is the insular phenomenon of ll into ḍḍ (ḍr), which is also very widely distributed through the Neapolitan territories on the eastern side of the Apennines, sending outshoots even to the Abruzzo. But in Terra d’Otranto we are already in the midst of the diphthongs of ế and of ṍ, both non-positional and positional, the development or permanence of which is determined by the quality of the unaccented final vowel,—as generally happens in the dialects of the south. The diphthongs of ế and ṍ, determined by final -i and -u, are also characteristic of central and northern Calabria (viecchiu -i, vecchio -a, vecchia -e, vecchia -e; buonu -i, bona -e, &c. &c.). Thus there comes to be a treatment of the vowels, peculiar to the two peninsulas of Calabria and Salent. The diphthongal product of the o is here ue. The following are examples from the Lecce variety of the dialect: core, pl. cueri; metu, mieti, mete, mieto, mieti, miete (Lat. mĕtere); sentu, sienti, sente; olu, uéli, ola, volo, voli, vola; mordu, muerdi, morde. The ue recalls the fundamental reduction which belongs to the Gallic (not to speak of the Spanish) regions, and stretches through the north of the Terra di Bari, where there are other diphthongs curiously suggestive of the Gallic: e.g. at Bitonto alongside of luechę, luogo, suęnnę, sonno, we have the oi and the ai from i or ę of the previous phase (vęćoinę, vicino), and the au from o of the previous phase (anaurę, onore), besides a diphthongal disturbance of the á. Here also occurs the change of á into an e more or less pure (thus, at Cisternino, scunsulête, sconsolata; at Canosa di Puglia, arruête, arrivata; n-ghèpe, “in capa,” that is, in capo); to which may be added the continual weakening or elision of the unaccented vowels not only at the end but in the body of the word (thus, at Bitonto, vęndett, spranz). A similar type meets us as we cross into Capitanata (Cerignola: graitę and grēi-, creta (but also pęitę, piede, &c.), coutę, coda (but also fourę, fuorí, &c.); vǫinę, vino, and similarly pǫilę, pelo (Neap. pilo), &c.; fuękę, fuoco; carętätę, carità, parlä, parlare, &c.); such forms being apparently the outposts of the Abruzzan, which, however, is only reached through the Molise—a district not very populous even now, and still more thinly peopled in bygone days—whose prevailing forms of speech in some measure interrupt the historical continuity of the dialects of the Adriatic versant, presenting, as it were, an irruption from the other side of the Apennines. In the head valley of the Molise, at Agnone, the legitimate precursors of the Abruzzan vernaculars reappear (feáfa, fava, stufeáte and -uote, stufo, annojato, feá, fare; chiezza, piazza, chiegne, piangere, cuene, cane; puole, palo, pruote, prato, cuone, cane; veire and vaire, vero, moile, melo, and similarly voive and veive, vivo; deune, dono, deuva, doga; minaure, minore; cuerpe, corpo, but cuolle). The following are pure Abruzzan examples. (1) From Bucchianico (Abruzzo Citeriore): veivę, vivo; rraję, re; allaure, allora; craune, corona; circhê, cercare; mêlę, male; grênnę, grande; quênnę; but ’nsultate, insultata; strade, strada (where again it is seen that the reduction of the á depends on the quality of the final unaccented vowel, and that it is not produced exclusively by i, which would give rise to a further reduction: scillarite, scellerati; ampire, impári). (2) From Pratola Peligna (Abruzzo Ulteriore II.); maję, mia; ’naure, onore; ’njuriéte, inguriata; desperéte, disperata ( alongside of vennecá, vendicare). It almost appears that a continuity with Emilian[11] ought to be established across the Marches (where another irruption of greater “Italianity” has taken place; a third of more dubious origin has been indicated for Venice, C. 1); see Arch. ii., 445. A negative characteristic for Abruzzan is the absence of the change in the third syllable of the combinations pl, bl, fl (into kj, j-, š) and the reason seems evident. Here the pj, bj and fj themselves appear to be modern or of recent reduction—the ancient formulae sometimes occurring intact (as in the Bergamasc for Upper Italy), e.g. plánje and pránje alongside of piánje, piagnere, branghe alongside of bianghe, bianco (Fr. blanc), flume and frume alongside fiume, fiume. To the south of the Abruzzi begins and in the Abruzzi grows prominent that contrast in regard to the formulae alt ald (resolved in the Neapolitan and Sicilian into aut, &c., just as in the Piedmontese, &c.), by which the types aldare, altare, and callę, caldo, are reached.[12] For the rest, when the condition and connexions of the vowel system still retained by so large a proportion of the dialects of the eastern versant of the Neapolitan Apennines, and the difference which exists in regard to the preservation of the unaccented vowels between the Ligurian and the Gallo-Italic forms of speech on the other versant of the northern Apennines, are considered, one cannot fail to see how much justice there is in the longitudinal or Apenninian partition of the Italian dialects indicated by Dante.—But, to continue, in the Basilicata, which drains into the Gulf of Taranto, and may be said to lie within the Apennines, not only is the elision of final unaccented vowels a prevailing characteristic; there are also frequent elisions of the unaccented vowels within the word. Thus at Matera: sintenn la femn chessa côs, sentendo la femina questa cosa; disprât, disperata; at Saponara di Grumento: uomnn’ scilrati, uomini scellerati; mnetta, vendetta.—But even if we return to the Mediterranean versant and, leaving the Sicilian type of the Calabrias, retrace our steps till we pass into the Neapolitan pure and simple, we find that even in Naples the unaccented final vowels behave badly, the labial turning to ę (biellę, bello) and even the a (bellă) being greatly weakened. And here occurs a Palaeo-Italic instance which is worth mention: while Latin was accustomed to drop the u of its nominative only in presence of r (gener from *gener-u-s, vir from *vir-u-s; cf. the Tuscan or Italian apocopated forms véner = vénere, venner = vennero, &c.), Oscan and Umbrian go much farther: Oscan, hurz = *hort-u-s, Lat. hortus; Umbr. pihaz, piatus; emps, emptus, &c. In Umbrian inscriptions we find u alternating with the a of the nom. sing. fem. and plur. neut. In complete contrast with the Sicilian vocalism is the Neapolitan e for unaccented and particularly final i of the Latin and Neo-Latin or Italian phases (e.g. viene, vieni; cf. infra), to say nothing further of the regular diphthongization, within certain limits, of accented e or o in position (apiertę, aperto, fem. aperta; muortę, morto, fem. morta, &c.).—In the quasi-morphological domain it is to be noted how the Siculo-Calabrian u for the ancient ṓ and ŭ, and the Siculo-Calabrian i for the ancient ḗ, ḯ, are also still found in the Neapolitan, and, in particular, that they alternate with o and e in a manner that is determined by the difference of termination. Thus cosetore, cucitore, pl. coseture (i.e. coseturi, the -i passing into e in keeping with the Neapolitan characteristic already mentioned); russę, Ital. rosso, -i; rossa -ę, Ital. rossa -e; noće, noce, pl. nuce; credę, io credo; cride (*cridi), tu credi; crede, egli crede; nigrę, but negra.
Passing now to a cursory mention of purely morphological phenomena, we begin with that form which is referred to the Latin pluperfect (see A. 1, B. 2), but which here too performs the functions of the conditional. Examples from the living dialects of (1) Calabria Citeriore are faceru, farei (Castrovillari); tu te la collerre, tu te l’acolleresti (Cosenza); l’aććettéra, l’accetterebbe (Grimaldi); and from those of (2) the Abruzzi, vulér’, vorrei (Castelli); dére, darei (Atessa); candére, canterei. For the dialects of the Abruzzi, we can check our observations by examples from the oldest chronicle of Aquila, as non habéra lassato, non avrebbe lasciato (str. 180) (cf. negara, Ital. negherei, in old MS. of the Marches). There are some interesting remains (more or less corrupted both in form and usage) of ancient consonantal terminations which have not yet been sufficiently studied: s’ incaricaviti, s’ incaricava, -abat (Basilicata, Senise); ebbiti, ebbe (ib.); avíadi, aveva (Calabria, Grimaldi); arrivaudi, arrivò (ib.). The last example also gives the -au of the 3rd pers. sing. perf. of the first conjugation, which still occurs in Sicily and between the horns of the Neapolitan mainland. In the Abruzzi (and in the Ascolan district) the 3rd person of the plural is in process of disappearing (the -no having fallen away and the preceding vowel being obscured), and its function is assumed by the 3rd person singular; cf. C. 1.[13] The explanation of the Neapolitan forms songhḛ, io sono, essi sono, donghḛ, io do, stonghḛ, io sto, as also of the enclitic of the 2nd person plural which exists, e.g. in the Sicil. avíssivu, Neap. avístevę, aveste, has been correctly given more than once. It may be remarked in conclusion that this Neo-Latin region keeps company with the Rumanian in maintaining in large use the -ora derived from the ancient neuter plurals of the type tempora; Sicil. jócura, giuochi; Calabr. nídura, Abruzz. nídḛre, nidi, Neap. órtola (= -ra), orti, Capitanata ácurḛ, aghi, Apulian acéddere (Tarantine acéddiri), uccelli, &c. It is in this region, and more particularly in Capua, that we can trace the first appearance of what can definitely be called Italian, as shown in a Latin legal document of the year 960 (sao co kelle terre per kelle fini qui ki contene trenta anni le possette parte Sancti Benedicti, Ital. “so che quelle terre per quei confini che qui contiene trent ’anni le possedette la parte di S. Benedetto”), and belongs more precisely to Capua. The so-called Carta Rossanese (Calabria), written in a mixture of Latin and vulgar tongue, belongs to the first decades of the 12th century; while a document of Fondi (Campania) in the vulgar tongue goes back to the last decades of the same century. Neapolitan documents do not become abundant till the 14th century. The same is true of the Abruzzi and of Apulia; in the case of the latter the date should perhaps be put even later.
4. Dialects of Umbria, the Marches and the Province of Rome.—The phenomena characteristic of the Gallo-Italian dialects can be traced in the northern Marches in the dialects not only of the provinces of Pesaro and Urbino (Arch. glott. ii. 444), where we note also the constant dropping of the final vowels, strong elisions of accented and unaccented vowels, the suffix -ariu becoming -ér, &c., but also as far as Ancona and beyond. As in Ancona, the double consonants are reduced to single ones; there are strong elisions (breta, Ital. berretta; blin, Ital. bellino; figurte, Ital. “figúrati”; vermne, Ital. verme, “vermine,” &c.); the -k- becomes g; the s, š. At Jesi -t- and -k- become d and g, and the g is also found at Fabriano, though here it is modified in the Southern fashion (spia = spiga, Ital. spica). Examples are also found of the dropping of -d- primary between vowels: Pesaran ráica, Ital. radica; Fabr. peo; Ital. piede, which are noteworthy in that they indicate an isolated Gallo-Italian phenomenon, which is further traceable in Umbria (peacchia = ped-, Ital. orma; ráica and raíce, Ital. radice; trúbio, Ital. torbido; frácio, Ital. fracido; at Rieti also the dropping of the -d- is normal: veo, Ital. vedo; fiátu, Ital. fidato, &c.; and here too is found the dropping of initial d for syntactical reasons: ènte, Ital. dente, from lu [d]ènte). According to some scholars of the Marches, the é for a also extends as far as Ancona; and it is certainly continued from the north, though it is precisely in the territory of the Marches that Gallo-Italian and Abruzzan come into contact. The southern part of the Marches (the basin of the Tronto), after all, is Abruzzan in character. But the Abruzzan or Southern phenomena in general are widely diffused throughout the whole of the region comprising the Marches, Umbria, Latium and Aquila (for the territory of Aquila, belonging as it does both geographically and politically to the Abruzzi, is also attached linguistically to this group), which with regard to certain phenomena includes also that part of Tuscany lying to the south of the southern Ombrone. Further, the Tuscan dialect strictly so called sends into the Marches a few of its characteristics, and thus at Arcevia we have the pronunciation of -ć- between vowels as š (fórmesce, Ital. forbici),[14] and Ancona has no changes of tonic vowels determined by the final vowel. Again, Umbria and the Sabine territory, and some parts of the Roman territory, are connected with Tuscany by the phenomenon of -ajo for -ariu (molinajo, Ital. mugnaio, &c.). But, to come to the Abruzzan Southern phenomena, we should note that the Abruzzan ll for ld extends into the central region (Norcia: callu, caldo; Rome: ariscalla, riscalda; the phenomenon, however, occurs also in Corsica); and the assimilation of nd into nn, and of mb into mm stretches through Umbria, the Marches and Rome, and even crosses from the Roman province into southern Tuscany (Rieti: quanno, quando; Spoleto: comannava, comandava; Assisi: piagnenno, piangendo; Sanseverino Marches: piagnenne, ’mmece, invece (imbece); Fabriano: vennecasse, vendicarsi; Osimo: monno, mondo; Rome: fronna, fronda; piommo, piombo; Pitigliano (Tuscany): quanno, piagnenno). It is curious to note, side by side with this phenomenon, in the same districts, that of nd for nn, which we still find and which was more common in the past (affando, affanno, &c., see Zeitschrift für roman. Philol. xxii. 510). Even the diphthongs of the e and the o in position are largely represented. Examples are—at Norcia, tiempi, uocchi, stuortu; Assisi and Fabriano: tiempo; Orvieto: tiempo, tierra, le tuorte, li torti, and even duonna. The change of preconsonantal l into r, so frequent throughout this region, and particularly characteristic of Rome, is a phenomenon common to the Aquilan dialect. Similar facts might be adduced in abundance. And it is to be noted that the features common to Umbro-Roman and the Neapolitan dialects must have been more numerous in the past, as this was the region where the Tuscan current met the southern, and by reason of its superior culture gradually gained the ascendancy.[15] Typical for the whole district (except the Marches) is the reduction to t (and later to j) of ll and of l initial, when followed by i or u (Velletri, tuna, tuce; Sora, juna, Ital. luna, jima, Ital. lima; melica. Ital. mollica, bétḛ, Ital. belli, bello, in vulgar Latin bellu; but bella, bella, &c.). The phonological connexions between the Northern Umbrian, the Aretine, and the Gallo-Italic type have already been indicated (B. 2). In what relates to morphology, the -orno of the 3rd pers. plur. of the perfect of the first conjugation has been pointed out as an essential peculiarity of the Umbro-Roman territory; but even this it shares with the Aquila vernaculars, which, moreover, extend it to the other conjugations (amórno, timórono, &c.), exactly like the -ó of the 3rd person singular. Further, this termination is found also in the Tuscan dialects.
Throughout almost the whole district should be noted the distinction between the masculine and neuter substantive, expressed by means of the article, the distinction being that the neuter substantive has an abstract and indeterminate signification; e.g. at S. Ginesio, in the Marches, lu pesce, but lo pesce, of fish in general, as food, &c.; at Sora te wétre, the sheet of glass, but lḛ wétrḛ, glass, the material, original substance.[16] As to the inflection of verbs, there is in the ancient texts of the region a notable prevalence of perfect form in the formation of the imperfect conjunctive; tolzesse, Ital. togliesse; sostenesse, Ital. sostenesse; conubbessero, Ital. conoscessero, &c. In the northern Marches, we should note the preposition sa, Ital. con (sa lia, Ital. con lei), going back to a type similar to that of the Ital. “con-esso.”
In a large part of Umbria an m or t is prefixed to the sign of the dative: t-a lu, a lui; m-al re, al re;[17] which must be the remains of the auxiliary prepositions int(us), a(m)pud, cf. Prov. amb, am (cf. Arch. ii. 444-446). By means of the series of Perugine texts this group of dialects may be traced back with confidence to the 13th century; and to this region should also belong a “Confession,” half Latin half vernacular, dating from about the 11th century, edited and annotated by Flechia (Arch. vii. 121 sqq.). The “chronicle” of Monaldeschi has been already mentioned. The MSS. of the Marches go back to the beginning of the 13th century and perhaps still further back. For Roman (see Monaci, Rendic. dell’ Accad. dei Lincei, xvi. 103 sqq.) there is a short inscription of the 11th century. To the 13th century belongs the Liber historiarum Romanorum (Monaci, Archivio della Società rom. di storia patria, xii.; and also, Rendic. dei Lincei, i. 94 sqq.), and to the first half of the same century the Formole volgari of Raineri da Perugia (Monaci, ib., xiv. 268 sqq.). There are more abundant texts for all parts of this district in the 14th century, to which also belongs the Cronica Aquilana of Buccio di Ranallo, republished by De Bartholomaeis (Rome, 1907).
D. Tuscan, and the Literary Language of the Italians.
We have now only to deal with the Tuscan territory. It is bounded on the W. by the sea. To the north it terminates with the Apennines; for Romagna Toscana, the strip of country on the Adriatic versant which belongs to it administratively, is assigned to Emilia as regards dialect. In the north-west also the Emilian presses on the Tuscan, extending as it does down the Mediterranean slope of the Apennines in Lunigiana and Garfagnana. Intrusions which may be called Emilian have also been noted to the west of the Apennines in the district where the Arno and the Tiber take their rise (Aretine dialects); and it has been seen how thence to the sea the Umbrian and Roman dialects surround the Tuscan. Such are the narrow limits of the “promised land” of the language which has succeeded and was worthy to succeed Latin in the history of Italian culture and civilization,—the land which comprises Florence, Siena, Lucca and Pisa. The Tuscan type may be best described by the negative method. There do not exist in it, on the one hand, any of those phenomena by which the other dialectal types of Italy mainly differ from the Latin base (such as ü = ṹ; frequent elision of unaccented vowels; ba = gua; š = fl; nn = nd, &c.), nor, on the other hand, is there any series of alterations of the Latin base peculiar to the Tuscan. This twofold negative description may further serve for the Tuscan or literary Italian as contrasted with all the other Neo-Latin languages; indeed, even where the Tuscan has a tendency to alterations common to other types of the family, it shows itself more sober and self-denying—as may be seen in the reduction of the t between vowels into d or of c (k) between vowels into g, which in Italian affects only a small part of the lexical series, while in Provençal or Spanish it may be said to pervade the whole (e.g. Prov. and Span. mudar, Ital. mutare; Prov. segur, Span. seguro, Ital. sicuro). It may consequently be affirmed without any partiality that, in respect to historical nobility, the Italian not only holds the first rank among Neo-Latin languages, but almost constitutes an intermediate grade between the ancient or Latin and the modern or Romance. What has just been said about the Tuscan, as compared with the other dialectal types of Italy, does not, however, preclude the fact that in the various Tuscan veins, and especially in the plebeian forms of speech, there occur particular instances of phonetic decay; but these must of necessity be ignored in so brief a sketch as the present. We shall confine ourselves to noting—what has a wide territorial diffusion—the reduction of c (k) between vowels to a mere breathing (e.g. fŭóho, fuoco, but porco), or even its complete elision; the same phenomenon occurs also between word and word (e.g. la hasa, but in casa), thus illustrating anew that syntactic class of phonetic alterations, either qualitative or quantitative, conspicuous in this region, also, which has been already discussed for insular and southern Italy (B. 2; C. 2, 3), and could be exemplified for the Roman region as well (C. 4). As regards one or two individual phenomena, it must also be confessed that the Tuscan or literary Italian is not so well preserved as some other Neo-Latin tongues. Thus, French always keeps in the beginning of words the Latin formulae cl, pl, fl (clef, plaisir, fleur, in contrast with the Italian chiave, piacere, fiore); but the Italian makes up for this by the greater vigour with which it is wont to resolve the same formula within the words, and by the greater symmetry thus produced between the two series (in opposition to the French clef, clave, we have, for example, the French œil, oclo; whereas, in the Italian, chiave and occhio correspond to each other). The Italian as well as the Rumanian has lost the ancient sibilant at the end (-s of the plurals, of the nominative singular, of the 2nd persons, &c.), which throughout the rest of the Romance area has been preserved more or less tenaciously; and consequently it stands lower than old Provençal and old French, as far as true declension or, more precisely, the functional distinction between the forms of the casus rectus and the casus obliquus is concerned. But even in this respect the superiority of French and Provençal has proved merely transitory, and in their modern condition all the Neo-Latin forms of speech are generally surpassed by Italian even as regards the pure grammatical consistency of the noun. In conjugation Tuscan has lost that tense which for the sake of brevity we shall continue to call the pluperfect indicative; though it still survives outside of Italy and in other dialectal types of Italy itself (C. 3b; cf. B. 2). It has also lost the futurum exactum, or perfect subjunctive, which is found in Spanish and Rumanian. But no one would on that account maintain that the Italian conjugation is less truly Latin than the Spanish, the Rumanian, or that of any other Neo-Latin language. It is, on the contrary, by far the most distinctively Latin as regards the tradition both of form and function, although many effects of the principle of analogy are to be observed, sometimes common to Italian with the other Neo-Latin languages and sometimes peculiar to itself.
Those who find it hard to believe in the ethnological explanation of linguistic varieties ought to be convinced by any example so clear as that which Italy presents in the difference between the Tuscan or purely Italian type on the one side and the Gallo-Italic on the other. The names in this instance correspond exactly to the facts of the case. For the Gallo-Italic on either side of the Alps is evidently nothing else than a modification—varying in degree, but always very great—of the vulgar Latin, due to the reaction of the language or rather the oral tendencies of the Celts who succumbed to the Roman civilization. In other words, the case is one of new ethnic individualities arising from the fusion of two national entities, one of which, numerically more or less weak, is so far victorious that its speech is adopted, while the other succeeds in adapting that speech to its own habits of utterance. Genuine Italian, on the other hand, is not the result of the combination or conflict of the vulgar Latin with other tongues, but is the pure development of this alone. In other words, the case is that of an ancient national fusion in which vulgar Latin itself originated. Here that is native which in the other case was intrusive. This greater purity of constitution gives the language a persistency which approaches permanent stability. There is no Old Italian to oppose to Modern Italian in the same sense as we have an Old French to oppose to a Modern French. It is true that in the old French writers, and even in the writers who used the dialects of Upper Italy, there was a tendency to bring back the popular forms to their ancient dignity; and it is true also that the Tuscan or literary Italian has suffered from the changes of centuries; but nevertheless it remains undoubted that in the former cases we have to deal with general transformations between old and new, while in the latter it is evident that the language of Dante continues to be the Italian of modern speech and literature. This character of invariability has thus been in direct proportion to the purity of its Latin origin, while, on the contrary, where popular Latin has been adopted by peoples of foreign speech, the elaboration which it has undergone along the lines of their oral tendencies becomes always the greater the farther we get away from the point at which the Latin reached them,—in proportion, that is, to the time and space through which it has been transmitted in these foreign mouths.[18]
As for the primitive seat of the literary language of Italy, not only must it be regarded as confined within the limits of that narrower Tuscany already described; strictly speaking, it must be identified with the city of Florence alone. Leaving out of account, therefore, a small number of words borrowed from other Italian dialects, as a certain number have naturally been borrowed from foreign tongues, it may be said that all that was not Tuscan was eliminated from the literary form of speech. If we go back to the time of Dante, we find, throughout almost all the dialects of the mainland with the exception of Tuscan, the change of vowels between singular and plural seen in paese, paisi; quello, quilli; amore, amuri (see B. 1; C. 3b); but the literary language knows nothing at all of such a phenomenon, because it was unknown to the Tuscan region. But in Tuscan itself there were differences between Florentine and non-Florentine; in Florentine, e.g. it was and is usual to say unto, giunto, punto, while the non-Florentine had it onto, gionto, ponto, (Lat. unctu, &c.); at Florence they say piazza, meźźo, while elsewhere (at Lucca, Pisa) they say or used to say, piassa, meśśo. Now, it is precisely the Florentine forms which alone have currency in the literary language.
In the ancient compositions in the vulgar tongue, especially in poetry, non-Tuscan authors on the one hand accommodated their own dialect to the analogy of that which they felt to be the purest representative of the language of ancient Roman culture, while the Tuscan authors in their turn did not refuse to adopt the forms which had received the rights of citizenship from the literary celebrities of other parts of Italy. It was this state of matters which gave rise in past times to the numerous disputes about the true fatherland and origin of the literary language of the Italians. But these have been deprived of all right to exist by the scientific investigation of the history of that language. If the older Italian poetry assumed or maintained forms alien to Tuscan speech, these forms were afterwards gradually eliminated, and the field was left to those which were purely Tuscan and indeed purely Florentine. And thus it remains absolutely true that, so far as phonetics, morphology, rudimental syntax, and in short the whole character and material of words and sentences are concerned, there is no literary language of Europe that is more thoroughly characterized by homogeneity and oneness, as if it had come forth in a single cast from the furnace, than the Italian.