Natisone Valley dialect | |
Nativename: | Slovenian: nedìško narèčje |
Pronunciation: | in Slovenian pronounced as /nɛˈdiːʃkɔ naˈɾɛt͡ʃjɛ/ |
States: | Italy, Slovenia |
Region: | Natisone valley (Venetian Slovenia) |
Ethnicity: | Slovenes |
Familycolor: | Indo-European |
Fam2: | Balto-Slavic |
Fam3: | Slavic |
Fam4: | South Slavic |
Fam5: | Western South Slavic |
Fam6: | Slovenian |
Fam7: | Littoral dialect group |
Dia1: | Western microdialects |
Dia2: | Eastern microdialects |
Isoexception: | dialect |
Ietf: | sl-nedis |
Map: | Littoral dialect group.svg |
Mapcaption: | Natisone Valley dialect |
Script: | Latin |
The Natisone Valley dialect (Natisone Valley: ; in Slovenian pronounced as /naˈdíːʃkɔ naˈɾéːt͡ʃjɛ/,[1] ;[2] [3]), or Nadiža dialect, is a Slovene dialect spoken mainly in Venetian Slovenia, but also in a small part of Slovenia. It is one of the two dialects in the Littoral dialect group to have its own written form, along with Resian. It is closely related to the Torre Valley dialect, which has a higher degree of vowel reduction but shares practically the same accented vowel system. It borders the Torre Valley dialect to the northwest, the Soča dialect to the northeast, the Karst dialect to the southeast, the Brda dialect to the south, and Friulian to the west.[4] The dialect belongs to the Littoral dialect group, and it evolved from Venetian–Karst dialect base.
The Natisone Valley dialect is a dialect of Slovene, an Indo-European language belonging to the western subgroup of the South Slavic branch of the Slavic languages. It is quite different from standard Slovene because the standard language is based on the Lower Carniolan and Upper Carniolan dialects,[5] which formed from the southeastern proto-dialect, whereas the Natisone Valley dialect formed from the northwestern proto-dialect and shows many similarities with other dialects in the Littoral dialect group.
Nonetheless, the Natisone Valley dialect and standard Slovene are easily mutually intelligible. Even though the dialect has many words derived from Friulian, it can still be quite easily understood by most Slovene speakers, unlike the Torre Valley dialect and Resian.
The dialect is mainly spoken in northeastern Italy, in Venetian Slovenia. It is spoken along four rivers: the Natisone (Slovenian: Nadiža) and its three tributaries: the Alberone (Slovenian: Aborna), Cosizza (Slovenian: Kozica), and Erbezzo (Slovenian: Arbeč), up to San Pietro al Natisone (Slovenian: Špeter Slovenov). In Slovenia, it encompasses the area west of the Kolovrat range, with villages including Ukanje and Kostanjevica (part of Lig), as well as villages around Livek. Larger towns can only be found in Italy, such as San Pietro al Natisone, Sanguarzo (Slovenian: Šenčur), Purgessimo (Slovenian: Prešnje), San Leonardo (Slovenian: Podutana), and Masseris (Slovenian: Mašere).
The Natisone Valley dialect is rather uniform. The easternmost microdialects are the most different, having the phonemes pronounced as //ə// and pronounced as //ʎ//, which are unknown to the other microdialects, and pronounced as //m// is sometimes used instead of pronounced as //n// at the end of a word. The biggest differences between the microdialects are the reflexes for Alpine Slovene, which has almost merged with in the west, merging into pronounced as //t͡ʃ//, with the first one usually being more palatalized. In the east, however, is still distinct and even pronounced as pronounced as //t͡s// at the end of a word.
The Natisone Valley dialect has pitch accent on long syllables. It also differentiates between long and short syllables, both can occur anywhere in a word. There is, however, tendency to lengthen historically short vowels. Accent is on the same syllable as in Alpine Slavic, which is different from Standard Slovene, which has undergone → and optionally → shifts (e. g. NV žená, SS žéna 'wife').
Similarly to standard Slovene, the Natisone Valley dialect also has diacritics to denote accent. The accent is free and therefore it must be denoted with a diacritic. Three standard diacritics are used; however, they do not show tonal oppositions.
The three diacritics are:
In addition, there is also the caron (ˇ), which indicates that a vowel can be either long or short.
The phonology of the Natisone Valley dialect is similar to that of standard Slovene. Two major exceptions are the presence of diphthongs and the existence of palatal consonants. However, the dialect is not uniform, and differences exist between eastern and western microdialects.
The Natisone Valley dialect has 24 (in the east 25) distinct phonemes, in comparison to 22 in standard Slovene. This is mostly due to the fact that it still has palatal pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, and pronounced as /link/, which depalatalized in standard Slovene, merging with the hard consonants.
Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | ||||
Affricate | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
(pronounced as /link/) | ||||||
Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ ~ pronounced as /link/ | ||||
Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | |||||
Flap | pronounced as /link/ |
The phonology of the Natisone Valley dialect is similar to that of standard Slovene, but it has a seven-vowel (eastern microdialects eight-vowel) system; two of those are diphthongs.
Close | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Mid | pronounced as /link/ | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | |
Open | pronounced as /link/ | |||
Diphthongs | pronounced as /ie~iɛ uo~uɔ/ |
The Natisone Valley dialect experienced lengthening of non-final vowels, and these became undistinguishable from their long counterparts, except for *ò. The vowel *ě̄ then turned into ie, and *ō into uo. Long *ə̄ turned into aː. Other long mid vowels (*ē, *ę̄, *ò, *ǭ) turned into eː and oː, respectively. The vowels *ī, *ū, and *ā remained unchanged. Syllabic *ł̥̄ turned into uː and syllabic r̥̄ turned into ar in the west and ər in the east.
Vowel reduction is almost non-existent; there is some akanye, e-akanye, and ikanye, but examples are rare. The only more common feature is loss of final -i, but even this is not the case in some more remote villages, such as Montemaggiore (Slovenian: Matajur) and Stermizza (Slovenian: Strmica). Short ə turned into either a or i in the west; in the east it remained ə only as a fill vowel. The cluster *ję- turned into i.
The palatal consonants remained palatal, but *ĺ turned into j in the west and *t’ turned into *č́. The consonant *g turned into ɣ and into x at the end of a word.
The Natisone Valley dialect still has neuter gender in the singular, but it feminized in the plural. It still has the masculine and neuter o-stem declension, as well as the feminine a-stem and i-stem declension. There is also a masculine j-stem, as well as the remains of the feminine v-stem and neuter s-, t-, and n-stems. These are mostly limited to single words. However, the dialect has more archaic declension patterns that differ considerably from standard Slovene:
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There are many loanwords borrowed from Friulian and Italian, but not as much as in Torre Valley dialect. Words from Proto-Slavic received pretty close evolution to that of Standard Slovene, so both varieties are mutually intelligible.
Standard Slovene | Meaning | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Writing | IPA | Writing | IPA | ||
kozá | pronounced as /[kɔˈza]/ | kóza | pronounced as /[ˈkɔ̀ːza]/ | 'goat' | |
kakùoša | pronounced as /[kaˈkúːɔʃa]/ | kokọ̑š | pronounced as /[kɔkóːʃ]/ | 'hen' | |
kandèla | pronounced as /[kanˈdɛ́ːla]/ | svẹ́ča | pronounced as /[ˈsvèːt͡ʃa]/ | 'candle' | |
golòb | pronounced as /[ɣɔˈlɔ́ːp]/ | golọ̑b | pronounced as /[gɔˈlɔ́ːp]/ | 'pigeon' | |
maglá | pronounced as /[maɣˈla]/ | meglȁ / mègla | pronounced as /[məgˈlá]/ / pronounced as /[mə̀gˈla]/ | 'fog' | |
ogìnj | pronounced as /[ɔˈɣiːɲ]/ | ógenj | pronounced as /[ˈɔ̀ːgən]/ | 'fire' | |
sér | pronounced as /[ˈsɛɾ]/ (west)pronounced as /[ˈsəɾ]/ (east) | sȉr | pronounced as /[ˈsɪ́ɾ]/ | 'cheese' | |
konác, kónc | pronounced as /[kɔˈnat͡s]/ (west)pronounced as /[ˈkɔnt͡s]/ (east) | kónec | pronounced as /[ˈkɔ̀ːnət͡s]/ | 'end' | |
ardèč | pronounced as /[aɾˈdɛ̀ːt͡ɕ]/ (west)pronounced as /[əɾˈdɛ̀ːjt͡s]/ (east) | rdȅč | pronounced as /[əɾˈdɛt͡ʃ]/ | 'red' | |
pandèjak | pronounced as /[panˈdɛ́ːjak]/ (west)pronounced as /[panˈdɛ́ːʎk]/ (east) | ponedẹ̑ljek | pronounced as /[pɔnɛˈdéːlɛk]/ | 'Monday' | |
ǧardìn | pronounced as /[d͡ʒaɾˈdíːn]/ | vȓt | pronounced as /[ˈvə́ɾt]/ | 'garden' | |
gjàndola | pronounced as /[ˈgjáːndɔla]/ | žlẹ́za | pronounced as /[ˈʒlèːza]/ | 'gland' |
The dialect's orthography is mainly based on western microdialects. It has 26 letters; 25 of them are the same as in the Slovene alphabet, and has been added for the phoneme pronounced as //dʒ//, which is written in Standard Slovene.
Standard orthography, used in almost all situations, uses only the letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet plus,,, and :
Letter | Phoneme | Example word | Pronunciation | |
---|---|---|---|---|
A a | pronounced as //aː//pronounced as //a//pronounced as //ă// | 'what kind' 'for free' 'thrown away' | pronounced as /[ˈkaːjʃan]/ kàjšanpronounced as /[zasˈtɔːɲ]/ zastònj pronounced as /[zaˈvăɾʒɛn]/ zavȧržen | |
B b | pronounced as //b// | 'approach' | pronounced as /[ˈbliːʒat]/ blìžat | |
C c | pronounced as //t͡s// | 'sucker' | pronounced as /[liˈzaːvat͡s]/ lizàvac | |
Č č | pronounced as //t͡ʃ//pronounced as //t͡ɕ// | 'hungry' 'red' | pronounced as /[ˈlaːt͡ʃan]/ làčanpronounced as /[aɾˈdɛːt͡ɕ]/ ardèč | |
D d | pronounced as //d// | 'menace' | pronounced as /[naˈdluːɔɣa]/ nadlùoga | |
E e | pronounced as //ɛː//pronounced as //ɛ// pronounced as //ɛ̆// | 'burning' 'stuck' 'having empty stomach' | pronounced as /[ɣuaˈɾɛːnjɛ]/ guarènjepronounced as /[spaɾˈjɛt]/ sparjèt pronounced as /[tɛ̆ʃt͡ʃ]/ tėšč | |
F f | pronounced as //f// | 'zajtrk' | pronounced as /[ˈfɾuːɔʃtix]/ frùoštih | |
G g | pronounced as //ɣ//pronounced as //ɡ// | 'fire' 'gland' | pronounced as /[ɔˈɣiːɲ]/ ogìnjpronounced as /[ˈgjaːndɔla]/ gjàndola | |
Ǧ ǧ | pronounced as //d͡ʒ// | 'garden' | pronounced as /[d͡ʒaɾˈdíːn]/ ǧardìn | |
H h | pronounced as //x// | 'rally' | pronounced as /[kɔˈmiːt͡six]/ komìcih | |
I i | pronounced as //iː//pronounced as //i// | 'mixed' 'to lick' | pronounced as /[ˈzmiːɛʃan]/ zmìešanpronounced as /[liˈzaːt]/ lizàt | |
J j | pronounced as //j// | 'returned' | pronounced as /[ˈu̯ăɾnjɛn]/ uȧrnjen | |
K k | pronounced as //k// | 'work' | pronounced as /[ˈkɔmpit]/ kómpit | |
L l | pronounced as //l// | 'birthday' | pronounced as /[kɔmplɛ.aːnɔ]/ kompleàno | |
M m | pronounced as //m// | 'completely' | pronounced as /[pɔˈpuːnɔma]/ popùnoma | |
N n | pronounced as //n// | 'common' | pronounced as /[ˈskuːpɛn]/ skùpen | |
O o | pronounced as //ɔː//pronounced as //ɔ// pronounced as //ɔ̆// | 'wrong' 'lazy person' 'herd' | pronounced as /[naˈɾɔːbɛ]/ naròbepronounced as /[lɛnɔˈba]/ lenobá pronounced as /[ˈtɾɔ̆p]/ trȯp | |
P p | pronounced as //p// | 'spicy' | pronounced as /[pɛˈkɔːt͡ʃ]/ pekòč | |
R r | pronounced as //r// | 'raw' | pronounced as /[saˈɾuː]/ sarù | |
S s | pronounced as //s// | 'cheese' | pronounced as /[ˈsɛɾ]/ sér | |
Š š | pronounced as //ʃ// | 'hornet' | pronounced as /[saɾˈʃɛn]/ saršén | |
T t | pronounced as //t// | 'to wash' | pronounced as /[ˈpɾaːt]/ pràt | |
U u | pronounced as //uː//pronounced as //u// pronounced as //ŭ// pronounced as //u̯// | 'hard' 'at noon' 'falcon' 'fat' | pronounced as /[tɛʒˈkuːɔ]/ težkùopronounced as /[ɔpuˈdaːn]/ opudàn pronounced as /[saˈkŭ]/ saku̇ pronounced as /[dɛˈbɛu̯]/ debèu | |
V v | pronounced as //ʋ// | 'problem' | pronounced as /[tɛˈʒaːʋa]/ težàva | |
Z z | pronounced as //z// | 'to bend' | pronounced as /[ˈzʋiːt]/ zvìt | |
Ž ž | pronounced as //ʒ// | 'to put down' | pronounced as /[ɔdˈluːɔʃt]/ odlùožt |
The Natisone Valley dialect is unregulated, and thus a fair degree of variation is common in both pronunciation and writing. The eastern microdialects are completely unstandardized, like most other Slovene dialects. In contrast, the western microdialects have their own dictionary and grammar, written by Nino Špehonja in 2012. The dictionary still allows many variations in writing, and consequently pronunciation. The main reason for different spellings is akanye, which is more common in some microdialects and less in others; e.g., the word for 'bonfire' can either be written as or .