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 vivid expressions and sayings, Romanesco is used in a typical diglossic setting, mainly for informal/colloquial communication, with code-switching and translanguaging with the standard language.

The vernacular language of Rome, of which the short Commodilla catacomb inscription (9 century CE) might be considered the earliest attestation, is believed to have been regarded as low-prestige, as can be seen in the 11-century Saint Clement and Sisinnius inscription, featuring a dialogue wherein the saint is given higher moral ground by juxtaposing his liturgical language with the common speech employed by Sisinnius and his servants.

An analysis published in 2022 presents the following as defining characteristics of old Roman vernacular.

• Vowel breaking of original stressed ⟨e, o⟩ > e.g.: tempus > tiempo (“time”) mortuus > muorto (“dead”)
• Lack of raising of stressed vowels before (e.g. lengua, “tongue”)
• Lack of raising of pretonic (e.g. de Roma; compare Tuscan di Roma)
• Conservation of unstressed when followed by a trill consonant (e.g. margarita; compare Tuscan margherita)

• Assimilation progressive, e.g.: ⟨nd⟩ > : mundus > munno (“world”) ⟨mb, nv⟩ > : combattere > commattere (“to fight”); convertit > (se) commerte (“he/she/it changes”) ⟨ld⟩ > : cal(i)dus > callo (“hot”)
• regressive, e.g.: ⟨x⟩ > : coxa > cossa (“thigh”) ⟨-gn-⟩ > : lignāmen > falename (“carpenter”)
• Betacism ⟨b, v⟩ > when geminated or preceded by a consonant other than : abbelenare (“to poison”) (compare Tuscan avvelenare)
• ⟨b, v⟩ > when word-initial, postvocalic, or preceded by : balneum > vagno (“bathroom”) parabola > paravola (“word”) barba > varva (“beard”)
• Palatalization -ssj- > e.g.: russeus, russjus > roscio (“red”) -pj- > e.g.: appia > Accia (“Appian”) g(e)- > e.g.: gelū > ielo (“frost”)
• Labiodentalization ⟨go-, gu-⟩ > e.g.: guerra > verra (“war”) gonella > vonnella (“skirt”)
• ⟨-mj-, -ng(e/i)-, -mbj-⟩ > sīmje > scignie (“monkeys”) adjungere > aggiognere (“to add”) cambjum > cagno (“change”)
• Affrication of to after tuolzero (“[they] took”) (compare Tuscan tolsero) apparzo (“appeared”, past participle) (compare Tuscan apparso) menza (“table”) (compare Tuscan mensa)
• ⟨-rj-, -sj-⟩ > e.g.: parjus > paro (“even, equal”) camisja > camisa (“shirt”)
• Conservation of semiconsonantal ⟨i⟩, e.g.: iacet > iace (“[it] lies”) (compare It. giace, having undergone affrication)
• Paragogic syllable -ne appended to oxytones (words stressed on the last syllable), e.g.: è (“[he/she/it] is”) > ene
• Lack of voicing of voiceless plosives in intervocalic position, and between a vowel and a resonant: lacus > laco (“lake”) (compare Tuscan lago) patrem > patre (“father”) (compare Tuscan padre)
• L-vocalization, e.g.: alt(e)rum > aitro (“other”) (compare It. altro)

• Presence of nouns with plural endings -a, -ora (e.g. cervella, “brains”; tempora, “times”)
• Presence of nouns with plural ending -o, reflecting the Latin 4-declension ending (e.g. mano, “hands”; compare Latin manūs)
• Presence of nouns with singular ending -e, reflecting the Latin 5-declension ending (e.g. bellezze, “beauty”; implies Vulgar Latin *bellitjēm)
• lo as the masculine definite article (plural gli)
• 2- and 3-person singular possessive pronouns — tio (“your(s)”), sio (“his/her/its”) — analogically reshaped on the basis of mio (“my, mine”); compare Tuscan mio, tuo, suo
• Presence of enclitic personal possessive pronouns (e.g. patremo, “my father”)
• Accusative singular personal pronouns mi, ti, si (compare Tuscan me, te, sé)
• Presence of the numeral doi (“two”; compare Tuscan due)
• 3-person singular preterite endings -ao (1 conjugation), -eo (2 conjugation), -io (3 conjugation)

Starting with the 16th century, the Roman dialect underwent an increasingly stronger influence from the Tuscan dialect (from which modern Italian derives) starting with the reigns of the two Medici popes (Leo X and Clement VII) and with the Sack of Rome in 1527, two events which provoked a large immigration from Tuscany. Therefore, current Romanesco has grammar and roots that are rather different from other dialects in Central Italy.

The path towards a progressive Tuscanization of the dialect can be observed in the works of the major Romanesco writers and poets of the past two centuries: Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (1791–1863), whose sonetti romaneschi represent the most important work in this dialect and an eternal monument to 19th century Roman people; Cesare Pascarella (1858–1940); Giggi Zanazzo (1860–1911); and Carlo Alberto Salustri (1871–1950), nicknamed Trilussa.

Before Rome became the capital city of Italy, Romanesco was spoken only inside the walls of the city, while the little towns surrounding Rome had their own dialects. Nowadays, these dialects have been replaced with a variant of Romanesco, which therefore is now spoken in an area larger than the original one. It slightly pervades the everyday language of most of the immigrants who live in the large city.

Romanesco pronunciation and spelling differs from Standard Italian in these cases:

• (lengthened) is used where standard Italian uses . This is spelt a letter seldom used in present-day Italian. Compare Italian figlio "son" and Romanesco fijo or fìo thanks to assimilation;
• geminate ("rolled r" or alveolar trill) does not exist anymore: for example, azzurro (Italian: azzurro "light blue"), verrebbe (Italian: verrebbe "he/she would come"). A Roman pun recites: "Tera, chitara e guera, co' ddu' ere, sinnò è erore" (English: "Ground, guitar and war with two R's, otherwise there is a mistake"): ere and erore are also "wrong", as they are erre and errore in Standard Italian. This phenomenon presumably developed after 1870, as it was not present in the classical 19th century Romanesco of Belli;
• becomes before another consonant: sòrdi Italian soldi "money";
• in Romanesco, as in most Central and Southern Italian languages and dialects, and are always geminated where permissible: e.g. libbro for Standard Italian libro "book", aggenda for agenda "diary, agenda".
• the dropping of vowels at the beginning of a word when followed by a nasal consonant (m, n, gn), for example 'nzomma (Standard Italian insomma), 'n (Standard Italian un/in), 'mparà (Standard Italian imparare), gni (Standard Italian ogni).
• assimilation with different consonant groups. (typically a Central-Southern phenomenon) For example, turns into (Standard Italian quando turns into quanno), turns into (Standard Italian caldo turns into callo), turns into (Standard Italian piombo turns into piommo).

Today, Romanesco is generally considered more of a regional idiom than a true language. Classical Romanesco, which reached high literature with Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, has disappeared.

External forces such as immigration and the dominance of Italian are playing a role in the transformation.

• Ferruccio Amendola, voice actor
• Mario Brega, actor and comedian
• Enrico Brignano, comedian
• Franco Califano, lyricist, musician,
• Paola Cortellesi, actress
• Christian De Sica, actor and singer
• Carlo Emilio Gadda, author
• Elena Fabrizi, actor and cook
• Aldo Fabrizi, actor and director
• Sabrina Ferilli, actress
• Gabriella Ferri, singer
• Lando Fiorini, actor and singer
• Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli, poet
• Anna Magnani, actress
• Nino Manfredi, actor
• Tomas Milian, actor
• Enrico Montesano, actor and comedian
• Pier Paolo Pasolini, poet, film director, writer, actor and playwright
• Cesare Pascarella, poet, painter
• Ettore Petrolini, actor
• Gigi Proietti, actor, director and comedian
• Enzo Salvi, actor
• Alberto Sordi, actor and director
• Trilussa, poet (Carlo Alberto Salustri's pen name)
• Antonello Venditti, singer
• Carlo Verdone, actor and director
• Zerocalcare, comics author
• The anonymous writers of the Pasquinades posted on the talking statues of Rome use Italian, Romanesco or a mixture of both.

• Belli's The Sovrans of the Old World (1831)