Calabrian Dialect

[jjk_16_21]

Calabrian Dialect..............Is there any software out that you can learn the Calabrian Dialect????? I want to learn Italian and I would rather learn the language my family spoke.

[Incipit]

Some interesting links:

http://www.calabriastudi.com

http://www.locuta.com/calab1.html

http://www.fotovideo.calabria.it/dati/D ... abrese.htm

Regards
Tommaso

[pascalena]

I have never come across any software for the Calabrian Dialect. I, myself, grew up with the dialect so I know how to speak it very well and that is because my mother and her brothers and sisters spoke it all the time and we learned as children. I think the only way you can learn it, is to either live in the region or be around people that speak it. I could be wrong, maybe there is something out there. The dialect is much different than proper Italian and it is very hard to communicate with others that do not know the dialect. I am 41 now and very happy that I learned it! If you find anything, let me know.

[nuccia]

Hi pascalena,

This may sound a bit weird to some but I have to mention this anyway. I'm Calabrese. That's the easy part. My mother is from Malito in Cosenza, my father from Locri in Reggio and I have family in Guardavalle (Catanzaro). My sister and I speak my mom's dialect (Cosentina) my brother speaks like my father (Reggitano) and for the life of me, I can't understand half of what my cousins from Catanzaro say when they talk! It seems they speak in the past sense.

Does this make sense? I think that it not only depends on the region a person is from, but from what town, or province, too.

Unfortunately, I always understood my Dad when I was growing up and he yelled at me about something. Some things in dialect are just universal!

Nuccia

[pascalena]

nuccia,

You are right! The province and town are very important. Many towns that are right next to each other in the South speak different dialects. It is very hard to understand what they are saying. My family is from Spadola in the province of Vibo Valentia and I had a cousin that did not speak our dialect but learned the "high" Italian as we call it and when he went to visit, they couldn't communicate. But luckily, one of the daughters came from Rome and was able to translate for them!

[Julo]

Hi pascalena,

This may sound a bit weird to some but I have to mention this anyway. I'm Calabrese. That's the easy part. My mother is from Malito in Cosenza, my father from Locri in Reggio and I have family in Guardavalle (Catanzaro). My sister and I speak my mom's dialect (Cosentina) my brother speaks like my father (Reggitano) and for the life of me, I can't understand half of what my cousins from Catanzaro say when they talk! It seems they speak in the past sense.

Does this make sense? I think that it not only depends on the region a person is from, but from what town, or province, too.

Unfortunately, I always understood my Dad when I was growing up and he yelled at me about something. Some things in dialect are just universal!

Nuccia

The "cosentino" dialect has basically a more intact indigenous Latin root because the ancient greek colonies never expanded in the more mountanous Cosenza region, while the reggio area dialect have a large greek influence because of the strong greek influence along the ionian coast that goes from Metaponto to Reggio. The Catanzaro dialect is almost a combination of the two and kind of serves as the dialect barrier, in fact north of Catanzaro you might say it's latin, while south of it it's greek.

[DonnaPellegrin]

The "cosentino" dialect has basically a more intact indigenous Latin root because the ancient greek colonies never expanded in the more mountanous Cosenza region, while the reggio area dialect have a large greek influence because of the strong greek influence along the ionian coast that goes from Metaponto to Reggio. The Catanzaro dialect is almost a combination of the two and kind of serves as the dialect barrier, in fact north of Catanzaro you might say it's latin, while south of it it's greek.

Julo,
I find this fascinating. I would like very much to know more about this. Unfortunately, the only websites that I find that discuss this are in Italian. Is there a good book you could recommend on the topic? A book in English?

[giapetto]

Logos library has literature and other documents in various dialects. See

http://www.logoslibrary.eu/pls/wordtc/n ... rce=search

[nuccia]

Interesting site giapetto. Will go through it and see how it works. Thank You.