Particularities of Neapolitan language

Lot’s of things which happen in the South of Italy are perceived in the Nord with angry critic. One of the main particularities in the south of Italy is the wealth of dialects with north habitants judge as vulgar, hissy and harmful for original Italian language. The most popular among them is Neapolitan dialect, which is used by approximately 7 million of people all around the southern coast.

In spite of the harsh words and rudeness of the sounds, this dialect was formed during plenty of decades, it has an influence of various cultures and nations, who were living in the territory of Campania for many years. That’s why Neapolitan language is the most widespread after official Italian. In 2014 UNESCO recognized it as a separate language and it was included into World Heritage of organization in order to protect its culture and to promote its studies.

Another characteristic of Neapolitan language is its musicality: this dialect was used by the creative personas to make the songs and to express their feelings and emotions by this. Unfortunately, nowadays Neapolitan language first of all is demonstrated not by music compositions, but by its vulgar perversion and inappropriate usage by new generations. Less and less the words are pronounced and written in correct way, they lose their meaning and transform into slang. Maybe this happened because dialect was recognized by UNESCO, but not by the Italian government.

Even if you know Italian language, when coming to Naples you can feel yourself lost in the center of the city by not understanding even a word. Neapolitan version is totally different from official language, As a prove, here is a list of some comparisons (English-Italian-Neapolitan):

• Slow - Lentamente - Chian Chian
• Absolutely - Completamente - San San
• Carefully - Meticolosamente - Pilo Pilo
• Lengthy - Disreso - Luongo Luongo
• In last moment- All'ultimo momento - 'ngann 'ngann
• Now - Adesso - Mo' mo'

Sounds funny, isn’t it?

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