Language changes, and quickly too. The glottologist Daniele Vitali discusses some aspects that characterize theevolution of Italian language which, like other living languages, is always in motion driven by the kinetic force of use and change. The first aspect that Vitali regards is the classic Italian uncertainty about how to pronounce intervocalic "s" which is being resolved in favor of the northern pronunciation.
Language changes before our eyes
As we speak, the Italian changes. The pronunciation of the "s" between vowels, for example, has changed and is changing throughout our lives. Not biblical times, therefore, but a continuous change due to various factors, including the perceived prestige of one ruling compared to another.
The language evolves, and here before it was all countryside
"Language evolves" is a recurring phrase in conversations about languages and dialects, but not everyone is able to provide concrete examples of this undoubted truth. At most, someone will mention the continued entry of anglicisms in Italian, a topic that we have already covered extensively.
So let's try to give some different examples, which may be interesting and, above all, which help to clarify according to which ones general rules language evolves.
The double sound of s
Let's start with a phonetic question, namely the pronunciation of s intervocalic. It is known that literally s correspond in Italian to two different sounds, namely la s of “tired” and the s of "landing".
The first, indicated by the International Phonetic Alphabet with /s/, is a "deaf" sound, that is, it is produced without vibration of the vocal cords. The second, indicated with /z/, is obviously not a zeta, but the corresponding "sound" of /s/, i.e. the tongue is placed in the same point of the mouth, only this time there is vibration of the vocal cords: /s 'tanko/ vs /z'barko/.
In the two examples given, the distribution is automatic: in "tired" we have /s/ deaf because /t/ is deaf, in "landing" we have /z/ voiced because /b/ is voiced.
Between vowels, however, there may be one or the other, with even some rare ones “minimum torque”, i.e. pairs of words that are distinguished only by the choice of one or the other of these two sounds.
Thus we have “fusi” which means “tool for spinning” if pronounced /'fusi/, but it is the past participle of “fuse” if pronounced /'fuzo/. Again, "cosetta" /ko'setta/ is a trivial matter, while "Cosetta" /ko'zetta/ is a feminine name with a vaguely retro flavour.
Different sounds
The sounds [s] and [z], being opposite in meaning, in short represent two different phonemes.
All of that in one classical Italian diction based on the old Tuscan pronunciation, where the choice of /s/ or /z/ in intervocalic position it depends on the single word: thus we have “house, month, nose” /'kasa, 'month, 'nose/ but “case, rose, vase” /'kazo, 'rɔza, 'vazo/.
Some contiguous parts of Central Italy behave like Tuscany, while the rest of the country has always regulated itself according to the classic North-South opposition: in the North all the intervocalic s are voiced, so /'kaza, 'rɔza/; in the South instead they are all deaf, so /'kasa, 'rɔsa/.
But how and but why
“But how”, some will object, “I'm from the North and yet I say 'rent, design, dinosaur' with /s/”. Others, on the other hand, will object: “I'm from the South but I say 'house, pink' with /z/”. Sure, because language evolves!
Let's clarify better. Even in the North, the cases of composition still heard as such they would keep the voiceless /s/, which is the normal one at the beginning of a word in front of a vowel. In practice, "rent" with /s/ because it comes from "we rent". Similarly, “resolution, resentment” with /s/ because from “solution, feeling”.
However, the composition is not clear to everyone, indeed almost to nobody, and it is more a question of "how it was heard the first time": from a northerner, I say "resentment" with /s/ but "presentmento" with /z / because, as a child, I learned this way.
Also as a child, I had noticed that, when I pronounced "drawing, dinosaur" with /z/, other Bolognese pronounced those same words with /s/. However, we all said "for rent" with /s/, even though as an adult I was surprised to hear other Italians say it with /z/.
Over time, then, /z/ in the intervocalic position has gained ground everywhere: in the North by reducing the number of exceptions for composition, in Tuscany by conquering words such as "casa, mese, naso" which in the classical pronunciation wanted /s/.
Let's be clear: if you listen to elderly and working-class Florentines, you will certainly still hear /s/. However, going down in age and going up the social scale, the frequency of /z/ will increase considerably, since this pronunciation is felt as "most prestigious".
A historical fact that repeats itself
Without the speakers knowing, a historical fact.
In fact, in Tuscan, and therefore also in Italian which, as we know, comes from the fourteenth-century Florentine, /p, t, k/ Latin intervocalic (or between vowel and /r/) are generally preserved: thus, from CAPRA(M), CEPULLA(M), DIGITU(M), ROTA(M), AMICU(M), URTICA(M) we had “ goat, onion, finger, wheel, friend, nettle”, while in the northern dialects these same words have sonorized the consonants in /v, d, g/, giving e.g. cavra, si(v)ola, de(d)o, roda, amigo, ontriga in the Veneto.
Well, some Tuscan and Italian words have though sonorized, e.g. lat. PAUPERU(M), SCUTU(M), STRATA(M), ACU(M), LACU(M) gave "poor, shield, road, needle, lake" as in the northern dialects, cf. po(v)aro, shield, road, needle, lake of the Venetian dialects. Instead, in the southern dialects we have poperu, scuto, strata, aco, laco with /p, t, k/ preserved.
An intermediate position
There has been a long debate between historians of the language and dialectologists as to why Tuscany has this intermediate position, of a tendency to preserve /p, t, k/ as in the South but with frequent exceptions that sonorize in /v, d, g / as in the North.
It seems rightly so that the complex internal procedures of the historical development of the Tuscan system have been invoked, but also recognizing a role for the geographically intermediate position between North and South which Tuscany and the rest of Central Italy have (as the name suggests).
In practice, before Florence assumed the role we know in the history of the Italian language, when it was still a city of secondary importance, it found itself under the influence of sonorous pronunciation of the North, then more prestigious.
The same phenomenon that made the Florentine uncertain between /p, t, k/ and /v, d, g/ occurred for s, so that in some words /s/ was maintained and in others they began to say /z/. This is the reason for the ambiguous arrangement of the Italian spoken according to the traditional pronunciation: it is always written s but it is pronounced in two different ways depending on the words.
Now, when the population of our country gradually learned Italian during the twentieth century, it did so above all through the written and scholastic supply chain, since dialects were spoken at home. It was not a problem to distinguish between /p/ and /v/, very different also in spelling, while it was impossible to follow the Italian standard for s, since the same letter was used for two different sounds.
Thus the northerners have adopted the sonorous sound /z/, and the southerners the deaf /s/, orienting themselves on their respective dialects.
The prestige of the pronunciation is not due to linguistic causes
Since the pronunciation that the s had in the North was more prestigious as typical of the richest part of the country, the Tuscans approached it, starting to generalize /z/ in intervocalic position, to the point that, even in Italian standard, the traditional pronunciation that distinguished between "house" and "rose" has been joined by a more Modern in which both words are pronounced the same, i.e. “ca/z/a” as “ro/z/a”.
This was the situation until a few years ago. Meanwhile, however, /z/ has continued its advance: in addition to becoming more and more frequent in Tuscany, it now seems to be perceived as the "right" pronunciation also in the rest of the country, so that I hear more and more often say "ca / z / a" even from Romans and southerners.
Speaking of language evolution one should not think of biblical times: things just happen under our eyes.
. . .
Daniele Vitali, from Bologna, was a translator for the European Commission for years. He has to his credit various glottology works on languages and dialects, including “Linguistic portraits: the Romanian” (Inter @ lia 2002), “Do you speak Italian-Luxembourgish? Notes on the language of the Italians of Luxembourg” (Inter@lia 2009), “Russian pronunciation for Italians” (with Luciano Canepari, Aracne 2013), as well as the great “Dizionario Bolognese-Italiano Italiano-Bolognese” (Pendragon 2007 and 2009, with Luigi Lepri), “Emilian dialects and Tuscan dialects. Linguistic interactions between Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany” (Pendragon 2020) and “Mé a dscårr in bulgnaiṡ. Manual for learning the Bolognese dialect” (Pendragon 2022).
