Vocalist.org archive


From:  "Vale [^_^]" <valevanni@m...>
"Vale [^_^]" <valevanni@m...>
Date:  Mon Jan 29, 2001  6:48 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] "hoch"-Italian: is there one?


On Fri, 26 Jan 2001 21:46:02
Isabelle Bracamonte wrote:
>I am curious to know where you find a "standard"
>Italian pronunciation. I have always thought that
>there is no standard...
Hello Isabelle,

I think that saying that "there is no standard" is a bit exaggerated.

No, a standard exist; it's a rather complex language, so it's not
a simple standard.
It has some little fault, question of high level language experts debating
(finenesses, little details... things not very important in daily
communications; things that if, you, stranger, do not know, don't make anybody
say "you haven't learned this language").
It is dynamic, in the meaning that language is continuously changing, and
slowly something that 20 years ago was "forbidden" become "accepted but not
elegant", and perhaps subsequently it will become "accepted"; something other
will become "obsolete", and so on.

There is a basic set of rules, generally accepted. Obviously, there are
deviations, due to dialectal influences. People of every region have a little
(more or less) deviation, but they recognize what standard is. There is no war
of the series "My dialect is perfect Italian, yours not!".
Like there are laws, and there are people that commit infractions, knowing
however that they are breaking a law.

>is there a textbook that Italians use in school, or is it something >that's
not official but that "everybody knows," (rather like the
>"anchorperson" English mentioned by Lloyd -- which I
>think is the Chicago accent, or the Californian
>accent, I forget which one)
Yes, there are many textbook, many dictionaries, but, as I said in previous
post to Lloyd, I haven't found anything "official" yet.
For now, I have to say that it's something that "everybody knows".

About the unstressed close-open problem, most grammaries, dictionaries, on line
courses don't take it into consideration because they give it for granted.
The only source I've found (that faces the problem) is
http://www.attori.com/dizione/index.html, on the chapter "Regola generale". But
it's only an italian course for speakers, actors, singers, made by a private
school.
Nothing of excessively authoritative.

>or do only Tuscans think it is official (since it is, after all, >their
dialect)? I'd like to know where the Tuscan (closed)
>dialect is documented as official, so I can get my
>hands on a copy of it.
The story is a bit more complex.
Some post ago, a member had given a perfect definition of Italian: a
"idealized" Tuscan.

The point is that standard Italian is neither the *closed* Tuscan dialect,
neither the Italian today spoken by Tuscans.
Let's hear what happened (centuries ago, I'm sorry I don't have many details on
history!):
When the "standard" was made, it wasn't picked a whole dialect (spoken and
written); really, it was picked only the *written* version of a dialect, the
Tuscan, and some *pronunciation* rules were picked from other dialects.

Tuscans, obviously, went on following their pronunciation rules, and accepted
standard Italian as something imposed by the outside.
Like (a bit less, indeed) people of other regions did.

So today we have that closed Tuscan dialect is only a dialect (like the
others), and, similarly, Italian spoken by Tuscans is only one of deviations
from standard Italian.
Clearly, Tuscan is the most "Italian" dialect, but it's not the standard. So
Tuscans don't think what you said.

>Colorni: "Many Italian text books state that
>unstressed e and o are close. Others maintain just as
>unequivocally that they are open. ... But the opening
>of unstressed e's and o's only, including the finals,
>is practiced by many prominent singers, and sounds
>most convincing. It does not distort the pattern of
>the language inasmuch as a stressed open vowel,
>because of its stress, will sound a shade more open
>than the corresponding unstressed one which gives the
>text its proper sound balance. It is correct to open
>unstressed e and o in lyric diction, but not to over
>open them."
According to me, if we literally "open" unstressed e and o,
there is no proper sound balance. The whole stressing of the word is alterated.
The word sounds different, it sounds wrong. It's not Italian...
not correct... not used in Italy.

At least in spoken. In singing, if you want to open for better phonation
reasons, I would give the following advice:
"It is correct to *slightly* open unstressed e and o in lyric dition: I want to
say "keep them close, only a bit less close than spoken". They have to be more
similar to close than to open".

>Moriarty: "It is assumed that unstressed e and o are
>always closed in spoken Italian. The modern vocal
>usage, however, make variations on this rule. ...
>Like English, but unlike French and German, Italian
>has no 'official' stage diction."
>
>Moriarty says: Preceding the stress, e and o are
>close. Following the stress, e and o are open.
>
>ve/ni/rE
>an/gE/lO
>fe/li/cE
I insist on saying that in Italian they don't sound right.
The second has an error on the stressed vowel too, it should be "ang/e/l/o/".


>Is there any dictionary that gives the pronunciation
>of unstressed vowels? Most of the bigger ones simply
>leave it out (making it impossible to look it up).
I've heard (I did not seen with my eyes, I don't guarantee!) that there are
"Zingarelli 11th or 12th Edition" and "DiPI Zanichelli".
Online you can find http://wordreference.com/it/: perhaps it's not complete as
a paper dictionary, but I think it's standard Italian about unstressed vowels.

>Berrong, in _Grammar and Translation for the Italian
>Libretto_ says that an unstressed O is always closed.
>
>Thomson, _Italian for the Opera_ says there is no
>consensus.
>
>Zingarelli is no help. Collins says it is "subject to
>regional variation" and leaves it at that. Avallardi
What is very subject to regional variations is stressed closing or opening of
vowels.

>(Italian-Italian dictionary) says nothing. Webster's
>closes them.
As I said before, they make the mistake of giving it for granted. Evidently,
for who comes from a foreign country, it's not so granted.

>So it appears that speaking texts close (and Italian
>natives, who are talking about the spoken language and
>not the sung language), while singing texts open.
Perhaps singing on some pitches require a bit of opening, but *only a bit* more
than in spoken, otherwise there's an alteration of language.

>The main point seems to be to get your stressed vowels
>right (by looking them up, for the most part, although
>there are some rules) and not worry too much about the
>unstressed ones. As long as you're consistant. But
>I'm still curious.
I disagree.

Stressed vowels are very important, and a very difficult aspect of this
language (because there is no simple rule, and there are many exception).
Sometimes, if you get them wrong, you change the meaning of the word.

But unstressed ones aren't less important.

In Italy, stressed vowels opening or closing changes regionally (those
"deviations"), so if you get them wrong you disappoint people from one zone,
and satisfy people from another.
You choose one of deviations.
But if you get wrong unstressed vowels (opening them), you can be sure you are
disappointing all (except a few cases of particular dialects).

bye



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